Abstract
This paper examines the intersections of caste, class, race, and gender in the Ibis Trilogy through a postcolonial feminist framework. Focusing on Sea of Poppies, River of Smoke, and Flood of Fire, the study analyses how Amitav Ghosh represents marginalised individuals negotiating colonial oppression and patriarchal structures in the nineteenth-century Indian Ocean world. The paper argues that the trilogy foregrounds the experiences of subaltern women such as Deeti and Paulette, whose identities are shaped simultaneously by caste discrimination, economic exploitation, racial hierarchies, and gendered violence. Drawing upon the theories of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Homi K. Bhabha, and Kimberlé Crenshaw, this article explores how Ghosh reconstructs colonial history from below by centring displaced labourers, coolies, sailors, and women excluded from dominant historiography. The paper further demonstrates that the ship Ibis functions as a liminal and transformative space where rigid social categories are simultaneously challenged and reproduced. Through multilingualism, maritime mobility, and transnational encounters, the trilogy interrogates colonial power and exposes the interconnected structures of domination that shaped the colonial world. Ultimately, the study establishes that the Ibis Trilogy redefines postcolonial historiography by integrating feminist and subaltern perspectives into narratives of empire, migration, and globalisation.
Keywords: Intersectionality, Postcolonial Feminism, Subalternity, Caste, Race, Gender, Amitav Ghosh, Ibis Trilogy, Colonialism
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