Labour migration, the Arabian Gulf, and the expanding territorial imagination in Malayalam cinema

Abstract

Mainstream Malayalam cinema of the south Indian state of Kerala has, for the most part, attempted to sidestep the significance of Gulf migration to the region’s development. Part of the reason for this historical neglect has been the prevalence of a particular hegemonic vantage point within the films that has centralized the narratives of the landed elites in Kerala, eliding the various historically marginalized communities within the state. This article engages with a recent development within the film industry. It examines how Gulf migration has shaped the affective dimensions and expanding territorial imagination of the New Malayalam Cinema, which has positioned labour migration as one of its central thematic concerns. It is argued that this shift was made possible by the displacement of the universalized territorial imagination of the landed elites in the state that dominated its film industry for most of its history. Subsequently, this article will closely study how director Zakariya places his debut film Sudani from Nigeria (2018) within this new cinematic category, and will demonstrate how he portrays the region of rural Malappuram in north Kerala as a nexus of various migrant experiences, crucially invoking an underlying older order of cosmopolitanism prevalent in the region, fuelled partly by the history of Gulf migration and partly by a tradition and history of migration and transnationalism that predates the formation of the Indian state.