The Expanding Landscape: South Asians and the Diaspora

How do people go about expressing, sustaining, reiterating their culture in new spaces? What constitutes ‘South Asian Culture’ in North America and Britain? This volume presents a diverse range of scholarship which seeks to outline some of the cultural activities practiced by peoples of South Asian origin who live in other places. Literature on the South Asian diaspora has tended to cluster in two areas: the demographically-oriented work of the 197s and 198s; and more recent theoretical work from the 199s, which has been developed within the framework of postcolonial studies. The essays in the present volume reflect research which does not ignore demographic and theoretical concerns but is primarily grounded in fieldwork, much of it ethnographic. Collected here, for the first time, are a remarkable range of essays that illuminate networks of Indian businessmen in New York; of marriage practices among Punjabi Sikhs in Britain and among Hyderabadis around the globe; annual commemorations of the classical Karnataka composer-saint Tyagaraja in Cleveland and New Jersey; the building of Hindu temples in Maryland or Atlanta; community formation through the Islamic Circle of North America or among social networks of Bangladeshis in Washington, D.C.; inter-ethnic relations among Ahmadiyya Muslims in Michigan or Queens; Urdu mushairas and qawwali performances in the metropolitan centres of North America; and what it means for scholars of South Asian origin to study South Asia in the Western academy. All these subjects are taken up by The Expanding Landscape’s distinguished group of contributors. About the Author Carla Petievich is Professor Emeritus of History and Urdu. Among other places, she has taught at Montclair State University, Columbia University and the University of Texas at Austin, where she is currently affiliated. Her other books include Assembly of Rivals: Delhi, Lucknow and the Urdu Ghazal (1992) and When Men Speak as Women: Vocal Masquerade in India-Muslim Poetry (27). Since retirement from teaching she has founded and run the Hoshyar Foundation, which is dedicated to raising and distributing resources to increase access to girls’ post-primary education in remote and underserved communities in Pakistan.