TRADING COMMUNITY OF INDIA: An Anthropological Study of Ethnicity

Our rapid approach to the new millennium across the world have developed critical trends and intensified public concerns over ethnic issues. This anthology is divided into five chapters each carries with thought provoking introductions. It identifies central issues and critical questions on various dimensions of ethnicity. Ethnicity among the Gujrati migrants is admirably portrayed by the authors showing how it stands unique for cultural-historical links between the hosts and the migrants, their routes of migration, occupational distribution, maintenance of ethnic identities at different levels through long lasting and short lived markers.

In this study the Gujrati traditions is presented as being partly selective blending of their own with great traditions as well as that of the host’s little traditions of Orissa. Since internal migration is a form of spatial movement of population between one geographical unit to another involving relatively permanent residential mobility, with or without family members, the Gujratis are no exception to it.

While analysing the ethnic processes this study not only offers the solution for conducive smooth adjustment of migrants with the host by providing empiric evidences in terms of sharing resources, change in food habits, participation in local social and cultural associations, it also indicates the dynamics of integration with the area of destination.
Apart from, the book critically describes the caste and class features of ethnic associations and various roles played by them in the political economy of the migrant community at their destination.