Rural Nostalgias and Transnational Dreams: Identity and Modernity Among Jat Sikhs (Anthropological Horizons)

Renowned as the predominant farmers and landlords of Punjab, and long possessed of an autocthonous agricultural identity, Jat Sikhs today often live urban and diasporiclives. Rural Nostalgias and Transnational Dreams examines the formation and meaning of Jat Sikh identity in the contemporary Indian city.

Nicola Mooney describes a number of Jat Sikh social practices and narratives through which contemporary notions of identity are developed. She contextualizes these elements of Jat Sikh modernity against local, regional, and national histories of cultural and political differentiation, perceptions of marginality, and the expression of increasingly exclusive notions and practices of identity. This unique ethnography incorporates first-hand observations and local narratives to develop insights into the traditions and social memory of Jat Sikhs, as well as on the issues of urban and transnational social transformation.