The Digital Nomadic Lens: Reclaiming Identity and Gender in 21st-Century Indian Travel Writing.

Abstract

The paper offers a detailed investigation of the development of travel writing through a span of 150 years, from the 19th-century satirical reviews to the 21st-century contemporary Indian authorship. It shows that travel writing acts as a “cultural mirror,” revealing the changing beliefs and attitudes about self, society and the imperialist world order. Juxtaposing the traditional Western travel literature of Mark Twain, John Steinbeck and Paul Theroux with the Indian contemporary standpoints of Bishwanath Ghosh and Shivya Nath, it argues for a major generic shift as travel writing has moved from outward, traditionally Eurocentric, cultural observation to inward, self-reflexive, gendered, globally engaged cultural critique.
Building on Edward Said's theory of Orientalism and theories of globalisation and mobility this investigation demonstrates that 19th-century works often ambivalently challenged and confirmed colonial stereotypes via satire whereas the 20th century moved the genre towards personal nostalgia and national introspection Finally the study contends that 21st-century Indian travel writing reclaims the genre through a focus on local “ordinary” spaces and the power of solo female travel The inclusion of digital nomadism and real-time storytelling shows how the genre has been democratised and become interactive and participatory linking local and global The research suggests travel writing is a live, evolving genre still reflecting the ways in which communities understand their place in a rapidly interconnected world.