Dr. Norman Buchignani fonds consists of textual records of earliest key research work related to the social histories of South Asian Canadians. Dr. Buchignani is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Lethbridge, Canada. He is a sociocultural anthropologist and theorist and his three decades of scholarly contributions to the South Asian Canadian studies led to the foundation for a new chapter in Canadian history and historiography. Dr. Buchignani’s earliest work involves an investigation of the newly emerging Fijian Indian community structure in Vancouver. This work led to a greater appreciation of the role of historical context in forming immigration, and thus to increasing interest in Asian Canadian history, especially that of Sikhs and other early migrants. He was also extensively involved in the rise of Canadian Asian studies and with research on the reduction of ethnic conflict. All of these laid the groundwork for initiating Continuous Journey: a Social History of South Asians in Canada (1985), co-authored by Doreen Indra. The book is considered to be one of the first works that documented the South Asian social and diaspora histories in Canada. During the 1980s and into the 1990s, his research focus was primarily on the contemporary Canadian race and ethnic relations, with a continued focus on South Asians. Dr. Buchignani donated his collection of the South Asian Canadian research-related papers to the South Asian Studies Institute (SASI) at the University of the Fraser Valley in 2011. The fonds consists of both primary and secondary sources of his work. The materials cover the period from 1898 - 1984 and includes government documents, handnotes, interviews, magazine and newspaper articles, photographs, reports, PhD dissertations, and theses.