Cosmopolitan connections: the Sindhi diaspora

Dr Mark-Anthony Falzon, an anthropologist and University lecturer in Social Science, recently presented a copy of his first book to the University Library. Cosmopolitan Connections: The Sindhi diaspora, 1860-2000 is published by Brill (Leiden and Boston); an Oxford University Press edition is due out by the end of the year.

The book looks at Sindhis, a diasporic community of Indian traders. It draws primarily on anthropological fieldwork conducted in London, Bombay and Malta, to portray a cosmopolitan group united by ties of kinship and community which are reproduced across space through processes such as the circulation of women and family visiting.

These ties have their counterpart in the economic sphere which is characterised by sets of translocal trading linkages, credit relations, and a heightened knowledge of markets. A model for the relation between mobility and commerce is thus explored.

Research for the book was made possible through generous grants from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, the Emslie Horniman Anthropological Scholarship Fund, and Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Dr Falzon's main interests are migration and diasporas, and urban anthropology. He is currently conducting a study on gender occupational segregation of labour, as well as fieldwork on hunting and trapping in Malta.