Ahuja 1 Studying Space and Identity through Spatial evocations in Punjabi Folklore Armeen Kaur Ahuja, M. Phil, Department of Comparative literature and Literary studies, Delhi University Abstract The research paper is an attempt to study Punjabi identity as cumulative whole of pre-partition and post-colonial space. The change in borders, boundaries and nation has not fully changed the Oral literature of the Punjabi community. The language tradition used in oratures has various geographical and cultural spaces embedded in its form. Since the language is born in a specific space and time, it is often an unconscious record of the same. The argument will also question the relationship of allocated citizenship vis-à-vis articulation of self of an individual through their operation on oral folk literature. It will attempt to unravel the layered spatial symbols, which have accumulated air of nostalgia around them, and position it in perspective of Punjabi consciousness. Lastly, it will study the creation of cultural spaces by the community to synchronize the political identity and self-envisioned identity. Keywords: Cultural studies, Identity, Nation and Identity, Folklore, Punjabi Folklore Introductions in Punjabi lok adab i are often repetitive; they might start from the individual’s name, profession, their place of birth, association with the particular institution or company and might close at personal anecdotes. It will not be wrong to say that the tradition of Hindustandi Lok adab often includes introduction of a person through their spatial belonging, and the introducer would often include a spatial entity to their ‘self’ to justify their introduction. Ghalib was introduced as a poet of Agra for a long period of time in Delhi mushairas, He began to be recognized as a poet of Delhi later in his life, and primarily in academic retrospection. Spaces somehow always creep in the concept of ‘self’ and often settle within the attitudes of seeing ‘self’ or ‘others’. Sahir Ludhianvi and Daagh Dehlvi’s adopted pen names reflect the exhibitory extension of space and its place in articulation of ‘Self’. Looking at the history of Daagh Dehlvi reveals that Nawab Mirza Khan was born in Delhi and died in Hydrabad, which became an abode for poets of Delhi after the fall of Mughals, Ludhianvi’s (or Abdul Hayye’s) trajectory remains the same, he was born in Ludhiana and died in Mumbai; change of spaces and location is natural in human life and awareness of the same is common sense, but the choice to adopt birth place’s name as a pen name is conscious and voluntary decision. The suffix structure of adopted names; Dehlav-i and Ludhianv-i transcribe the articulation of self as “of/from Delhi” and “of/from Ludhiana”. Such articulation of belongingness is direct translation of what anthropologists sometimes may call the primordial identity. Primordial identity is based on primordial group, which is an overlapping term for ethnic group or a group one is born into. ii The housing of identity is often realized through groups and Alan Dundes notes a family to be one of the smallest unit of folk, and often the first primary identity