Imagining Punjab Punjabi And Punjabiat In The Transnational Era

This book moves away from originary myths of region and identity that have dominated academic and mediatized representations of Punjab, a land-locked region divided between India and Pakistan after the Partition of 1947, and instead focuses on the role of the imagination in producing Punjab. It deconstructs Punjab as an ethno-spatial, ethno-linguistic and ethno-cultural construct produced by the communities who dwell there, those who have left it and those formed by new narratives of the region.By isolating imaginings of Punjab that are not centred on exclusivist regional, linguistic, sectarian or caste perspectives, contributions to this book propose the concept of free-flowing cartographies in relation to Punjab, which facilitate its imaginings as a geographical region, a social construct and a state of consciousness. The region is simultaneously imagined as a small place, a neighbourhood, a city, and a village, but also as a performative practice and a certain ways of doing things. Through focusing on a number of Punjabi spaces and communities and engaging with Punjab as a geographical region, social construct and state of consciousness, the papers in the book hope to contribute to broader debates on transnationalism, postnationalism, micronationalism, and new identity narratives emerging in the twenty first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.

This book moves away from originary myths of region and identity that have dominated academic and mediatized representations of Punjab, a land-locked region divided between India and Pakistan after the Partition of 1947, and instead focuses on the role of the imagination in producing Punjab. It deconstructs Punjab as an ethno-spatial, ethno-linguistic and ethno-cultural construct produced by the communities who dwell there, those who have left it and those formed by new narratives of the region.By isolating imaginings of Punjab that are not centred on exclusivist regional, linguistic, sectarian or caste perspectives, contributions to this book propose the concept of free-flowing cartographies in relation to Punjab, which facilitate its imaginings as a geographical region, a social construct and a state of consciousness. The region is simultaneously imagined as a small place, a neighbourhood, a city, and a village, but also as a performative practice and a certain ways of doing things. Through focusing on a number of Punjabi spaces and communities and engaging with Punjab as a geographical region, social construct and state of consciousness, the papers in the book hope to contribute to broader debates on transnationalism, postnationalism, micronationalism, and new identity narratives emerging in the twenty first century. This book was originally published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.

This book explores the localisation of modernity in late colonial India. As a case study, it focuses on the hitherto untold colonial history of Khalsa College, Amritsar, a pioneering and highly influential educational institution founded in the British Indian province of Punjab in 1892 by the religious minority community of the Sikhs. Addressing topics such as politics, religion, rural development, militarism or physical education, the study shows how Sikh educationalists and activists made use of and ‘localised’ communal, imperial, national and transnational discourses and knowledge. Their modernist visions and schemes transcended both imperialist and mainstream nationalist frameworks and networks. In its quest to educate the modern Sikh – scientific, practical, disciplined and physically fit – the college navigated between very local and global claims, opportunities and contingencies, mirroring modernity’s ambivalent simultaneity of universalism and particularism.

This book outlines and discusses the very wide range of cinema which is to be found in Singapore. Although Singapore cinema is a relatively small industry, and relatively new, it has nevertheless made an impact, and continues to develop in interesting ways. The book shows that although Singapore cinema is often seen as part of diasporic Chinese cinema, it is in fact much more than this, with strong connections to Malay cinema and the cinemas of other Southeast Asian nations. Moreover, the themes and subjects covered by Singapore cinema are very wide, ranging from conformity to the regime and Singapore’s national outlook, with undesirable subjects overlooked or erased, to the sympathetic depiction of minorities and an outlook which is at odds with the official outlook. The book will be useful to readers coming new to the subject and wanting a concise overview, while at the same time the book puts forward many new research findings and much new thinking.

In attempting to carve out a place for themselves in local and global contexts, young Sikhs mobilize efforts to construct, choose, and emphasize different aspects of religious and cultural identification depending on their social setting and context. Young Sikhs in a Global World presents current research on young Sikhs with multicultural and transnational life-styles and considers how they interpret, shape and negotiate religious identities, traditions, and authority on an individual and collective level. With a particular focus on the experiences of second generation Sikhs as they interact with various people in different social fields and cultural contexts, the book is constructed around three parts: 'family and home', 'public display and gender', and 'reflexivity and translations'. New scholarly voices and established academics present qualitative research and ethnographic fieldwork and analyse how young Sikhs try to solve social, intellectual and psychological tensions between the family and the expectations of the majority society, between Punjabi culture and religious values.

Ethnic and religious identity-markers compete with class and gender as principles shaping the organization and classification of everyday life. But how are an individual's identity-based conflicts transformed and redefined? Identity is a specific form of social capital, hence contexts where multiple identities obtain necessarily come with a hierarchy, with differences, and hence with a certain degree of hostility. The contributors to this book examine the rapid transformation of identity hierarchies affecting Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, a symptom of political fractures, social-economic transformation, and new regimes of subjectification. They focus on the state's role in organizing access to resources, with its institutions often being the main target of demands, rather than competing social groups. Such con- texts enable entrepreneurs of collective action to exploit identity differences, which in turn help them to expand the scale of their mobilization and to align local and national conflicts. The authors also examine how identity-based violence may be autonomous in certain contexts, and serve to prime collective action and transform the relations between communities.

The second edition of The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Popular Music provides an updated, state-of-the-art analysis of the most important themes and concepts in the field, combining research in religious studies, theology, critical musicology, cultural analysis, and sociology. It comprises 30 updated essays and six new chapters covering the following areas: · Popular Music, Religion, and Performance · Musicological Perspectives · Popular Music and Religious Syncretism · Atheism and Popular Music · Industrial Music and Noise · K-pop The Handbook continues to provide a guide to methodology, key genres and popular music subcultures, as well as an extensive updated bibliography. It remains the essential tool for anyone with an interest in popular culture generally and religion and popular music in particular.

The geographical diversity of the Indian diaspora has been shaped against the backdrop of the historical forces of colonialism, nationalism and neoliberal globalization. In each of these global moments, the demand for Indian workers has created the multiple global pathways of the Indian diasporas. The Routledge Handbook of the Indian Diaspora introduces readers to the contexts and histories that constitute the Indian diaspora. It brings together scholars from different parts of the globe, representing various disciplines, and covers extensive spatial and temporal terrain. Contributors draw from a variety of archives and intellectual perspectives in order to map the narratives of the Indian diaspora. The topics covered range from the history of diasporic communities, activism, identity, gender, politics, labour, policy, violence, performance, literature and branding. The handbook analyses a wide array of issues and debates and is organised in six parts: • Histories and trajectories • Diaspora and infrastructures • Cultural dynamics • Representation and identity • Politics of belonging • Networked subjectivities and transnationalism. Providing a comprehensive analysis of the diverse social, cultural and economic contexts that frame diasporic practices, this key reference work will reinvigorate discussions about the Indian diaspora, its global presence and trajectories. It will be an invaluable resource for academics, researchers and students interested in studying South Asia in general and the Indian diaspora in particular.