My work centres on the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, and Punjabi diaspora communities. My current research relates to advocacy for the Punjabi language both in South Asia and within diaspora Punjabi communities, with particular attention to literary/cultural production in Punjabi in these locations and its political valences. I am interested in understanding the ways in which language operates to articulate a form of political engagement that is both locally configured and directed towards the idea of Punjab as a single linguistic and cultural space in South Asia despite its division into two generally hostile nation-states. Analysis of the relationship established by migrants to that region through language and its literary and media forms provides a compelling way to understand political engagement in a new way.

I’d welcome conversations about diasporic political action and advocacy, and any connections with people interested in working on/in the Punjabi-speaking diaspora of Canada.