Introduction To 'Punjabi Identity Continuity And Change' By Gurharpal Singh Ian Talbot

This volume brings together papers delivered at the 13th European conference of Modern South Asian Studies held at the University of Toulouse. France, in August 1994. They were presented at a panel organised around the theme of Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change, The subject was sufficiently ecumenical to accommodate a broad range of approaches: from ecological to psychological theories, from the construction of language and meaning to old fashioned hegemonic ethnicityt and from communalisation to the dilemmas of metropolitan ethnic classification A comprehensive coverage of the latest research on Punjab is provlded and the collection addresses, for the first time, the issue of Punjabi identity in three contexts: the pre-1947 Punjab, the post-1947 East and West Punjabis, and the Punjabi diaspora.

This book rettects the increasing depth and range of contemporary schclarshtp that is engaged in Punjab studies and highlights the developments that have contributed to this process. Punjab studies as an academic specialism has clearly arrived. Punjabi Identity: Continuity and Change is being offered in the hope that it will provide new and interesting points of departure.