This volume looks at a diasporic community of Indian traders. It draws on anthropological field research as well as archival sources 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 and a readiness to explore them. A model for the relation between mobility and commerce is thus explored.
The book, which includes a number of maps and original photographs, is ground-breaking in that it uses the technique of 'multi-sited ethnography', in which data from different sites are juxtaposed into a broad synthesis. It is geared towards a broad audience.