Travelling home: British women sailing from India, 1940–1947

SynopsisDebates concerning female transmigrants have pointed to their association with home(s), domesticity and the familial. In this article, I explore these connections in relation to the white, middle-class, British wives of civil servants and army officers returning from India. I consider both the physical and metaphorical journeys associated with repatriation, which I examine as a fundamental part of transmigration, reflecting on women's continuing relationship with domesticity as they travelled home. Women returning from India reflected complex notions of home and demonstrated a destabilized sense of self and belonging as they left the sub-continent, a process which was exacerbated on the sea voyage to Britain as a result of the physical and emotional stress women experienced whilst travelling—most notably in relation to familial responsibility. By examining repatriation in this way, it is possible to consider the difficulties of defining the beginning and end of such journeys and to question the distinctions that are made between travel and migration, voluntary and forced movements.