ABSTRACT
As an undergraduate student during the late 1980s, I encountered (what was still called) comparative religion for the first time. As part of the course, students were introduced to the religions and cultures of so-called ethnic minorities, especially South Asian heritage Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs and Parsis. While preparing for end-of-term examinations, I remember very clearly a long, early summer’s day spent reading a study of migration from rural India. An educationalist’s account of the significance of family, home, language and religion for the children of Indians overseas, it explores ‘how far the social traditions of the Punjabi villages are being maintained in Sikh households’ (James 1974: 2).1 This early study of how religion and culture travel, how they alter and change as people move, mix and remake their lives in new settings, what they preserve, lose and gain, and the impact of all this on their identification with homes new and old, really captured my interest. Although, I did not consciously make such a connection at the time, I imagine now that it had much to do with my own sense of identity. As with so many people, in so many different places, during the modern period, my family history has been shaped by forces of international migration.
