A Punjab Village

This richly detailed entry in 'The Empire Series' outlines the daily lives of men and women in a village in pre-partition Punjab. The film explores this agrarian economy - the harvesting of crops like corn and rice, the domestic labour of women and the handloom industry, and animal husbandry. Like the other films in the series, this one has an orientalist gaze which emphasises the benevolence of empire, casting a paternalistic eye over people going about their business. Strikingly, the intertitles are at odds with the visuals on the classification and gendering of labour.

The film depicts men and women labouring in the fields or performing domestic tasks such as firing up the kiln, but these representations become pointedly gendered by the intertitles which denote that men work the fields and women fetch the water, and every Punjabi woman makes her own bread. James Fairgrieve who had no initial Geographical training, went on went on to become an influential figure in Modern and Human Geography after a part time course in Geography at the London School of Economics. He held important positions at the University of London, Institute of Education and the Geographical Association. As someone who was deeply interested in Human Geography - that is the study of people and their communities, cultures, economics and environment - his influence on the film shows in the ways in which it details the economic aspects of the village. Dr. Amina Yaqin (SOAS University of London)