Author Description

The two volumes, the award-winning A Punjabi Village in Pakistan and The Economic Life of a Punjabi Village are based on extensive fieldwork in Pakistan and contain relevant insights into Pakistani society, particularly women, still pertinent today, as well as a more holistic and humanistic view of village life. Eglar's study is useful for precisely what she focused on--the patterns of ritual service and gift exchange which underlay every facet of life in the village.Together the two books present an in-depth outsider-insider perspective into the social and economic patterns of a village in Pakistan prior to the Green Revolution of 1958 which heralded the beginnings of change in village agriculture and land ownership.Of particular advantage to the research was the fact that Eglar's sources of information were not limited to one or the other gender. As a guest of the Chowdhry family she could initially stay in the baithak (guest house), traditionally an all-male preserve situated close to the main house where villagers would gather over a smoke and chat after their day's work. In addition, as a woman, she could freely enter the women's domain and participate in and observe their daily activities.In her work, Eglar found unwritten social contracts and relationships known as vartan bhanji that bound the community at different levels. The well-established networking patterns of vartan bhanji cemented relationships within the family. These patterns then extended beyond the family to the wider village community and further, to other villages in the area. The unwritten code also sustained professional relationships between the landowning zamindars, the tenant farmers and the kammis (literally, 'those who work', people in service professions). Vartan bhanji in the male domain revolved around farming and its associated trades, with various reciprocal exchanges moving the economy along, rather than cash payments. However, women played a central role. It is this dual aspect th