A Diasporic Indian Community: Re-Imagining Punjab

This paper examines a UK Jat Sikh Punjabi diasporic community. Existing studies of such communities focus upon processes of identity formation within the UK. We suggest that British Asian identities are shaped by social processes within South Asia as well as the UK. In particular, we argue that meanings of home, amongst the UK diasporic group studied, are being importantly shaped by dynamic social and cultural processes within East Punjab. Because our research is transnational, ethnography within the UK and India, we are able to illustrate that meanings of home, as part of diasporic identities, can be context-dependent, contradictory and are 'intrinsically linked with the way in which processes of inclusion or exclusion operate and are subjectively experienced under given circumstances' (Brah 1996: 192).