1st Edition

Young Sikhs in a Global World Negotiating Traditions, Identities and Authorities

By Knut A. Jacobsen, Kristina Myrvold Copyright 2015
    312 Pages
    by Routledge

    310 Pages
    by Routledge

    In attempting to carve out a place for themselves in local and global contexts, young Sikhs mobilize efforts to construct, choose, and emphasize different aspects of religious and cultural identification depending on their social setting and context. Young Sikhs in a Global World presents current research on young Sikhs with multicultural and transnational life-styles and considers how they interpret, shape and negotiate religious identities, traditions, and authority on an individual and collective level. With a particular focus on the experiences of second generation Sikhs as they interact with various people in different social fields and cultural contexts, the book is constructed around three parts: 'family and home', 'public display and gender', and 'reflexivity and translations'. New scholarly voices and established academics present qualitative research and ethnographic fieldwork and analyse how young Sikhs try to solve social, intellectual and psychological tensions between the family and the expectations of the majority society, between Punjabi culture and religious values.

    Introduction; I: Family and Home; 1: Family Values; 2: Young Sikhs in Finland; 3: Punjabi Youth in Northern Italy; 4: Punjabi across Generations; II: Representation and Gender; 5: The Impossible Hybridity of Hair; 6: Marking the Female Sikh Body; 7: Young Sikhs and Literature; 8: Becoming Men in the Global Village; III: Reflexivity and Translation; 9: Beyond Code-Switching; 10: Young Sikhs in Italy; 11: London Sikh Youth as British Citizenry; 12: Reflexivity

    Biography

    Knut A. Jacobsen is Professor of History of Religions at the University of Bergen in Norway. He has published widely on religions in South Asia and in the South Asian diasporas. He is the editor, together with Selva J. Raj, of the book South Asian Christian Diaspora: Invisible Diaspora in Europe and North America that was published by Ashgate in 2008, and, together with Kristina Myrvold, the editor of Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations published by Ashgate in 2011. Kristina Myrvold is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Linnaeus University, Sweden. She has specialized in Sikh studies and is the author of several publications on Sikh practices, historiography and migration. She is the editor of the book The Death of Sacred Texts: Ritual Disposal and Renovation of Texts published by Ashgate in 2010, and the editor, together with Knut A. Jacobsen, of Sikhs in Europe: Migration, Identities and Representations published by Ashgate in 2011.

    ’Young Sikhs in a Global World offers excitingly wide-ranging ethnographies of Sikhs in Europe, North America and cyberspace. These authoritative studies of the dynamics of being Punjabi, and being Sikh, while engaged both locally and transnationally, make a valuable contribution to understandings of identity formation, inter-generational relations and gender, diasporic literature and musical and linguistic transformations.’ Eleanor Nesbitt, University of Warwick, UK ’An excellent addition to the study of the Sikh community in Europe, the essays represent fresh voices, break new ground, and offer new insights about challenges confronting the generation of Sikhs growing up in Europe.’ Gurinder Singh Mann, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA