DIVERSITY, ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY IN SOUTH ASIA

South Asia, home to nearly one-sixth of the world’s population, is currently in the focus of considerable academic attention. The emergence of India as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world has further sharpened the international focus on the region. South Asia is one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world and, at the same time, the site of a long-standing process of cultural hybridization and symbiosis. The region has witnessed, over the past several centuries as well as in recent years, highly significant and complex processes of ethnicization, identity-construction and ethnic conflict. The present volume hopes to make a modest contribution to the study of South Asia in the context of its pervasive diversity and complexity and the interface between change and continuity.

The papers in the volume by a galaxy of scholars like Bhikhu Parekh, T.K. Oommen, Aparna Rao, Lionel Caplan, Peter Kloos, Yunas Samad, K.S. Singh and Lee Schlesinger, deal with a wide range of theoretical and empirical themes and issues in the context of South Asia, including multicultural state, pluralism, shifting identities, ethnic violence, national identity, tribal autonomy, and the interface of religion and identity.

A.R. Momin has taught at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai for more than three decades. He was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of Sociology at Graz University, Austria in 2005 and 2008. He is at present Emeritus Fellow at the Department of Sociology, University of Mumbai.

An author of three books and over two dozen papers published in academic journals in India and abroad, Professor Momin’s current academic interests include sociological and anthropological theory, globalisation and national identity. He has also participated in conferences and seminars and delivered lectures at several universities in India and in the UK, USA, Germany, France, China, Russia, Spain, Austria, Turkey, Switzerland, Malaysia and Egypt. He has served on the committees of the University Grants Commission, Indian Council of Social Science Research and Anthropological Survey of India.