Young Sikhs in a Global World

Punjabi masculinities and transnational spaces: Performance, choice and othering

“…This also centralizes the importance of land as capital to the Jat identity, which resonates with traditional understandings of the ‘breadwinner’ attribute that consistently marks the hegemonic ideal (see Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Nevertheless, according to Jacobsen and Myrvold (2015), as men move through multiple geographies, they respond to changes in their masculine identities by asserting or upholding their attachment to primordial identifications associated with their specifically rural, Jat identities. In the same vein, Mooney (2011, p. 194) articulates: ‘living abroad causes the land, and the Jat sense of being at home on it, to be further reified’.…”

“…Similarly, Pande (2017) posits that hypermasculinity on the one hand and religious masculine performance on the other hand are two parallel, albeit contrasting, strategies employed by migrant Bangladeshi men in South Africa as remedies for perceived powerlessness. Such loss in masculine identity and subsequent, often hypermasculine, attempts for remedying/maintaining the gendered status quo is also well established in more general and wider geographical contexts (e.g., Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Hondagneu‐Sotelo and Messner, 1999; Jacobsen & Myrvold, 2015).…”

At home in the gurdwara? Religious space and the resonance with domesticity in a London suburb

“…Whether in India or in the diaspora, a gurdwara is the Sikh place of worship where religious services take place and the assembly of the devotees (sangat) gathers together. Congregational worship lies at the heart of Sikh devotion (Jacobsen 2012). It is defined as such by the presence of the sacred text, the Guru Granth Sahib (henceforth: GGS) (McLeod 1997;Singh 2014).…”

“…Gurdwaras reestablish an environment where everyone speaks Punjabi, dresses and eats according to specific Punjabi-styles. This likely produces a sense of being at home for first-generation and new migrants, but not necessarily for new generations who might wish to de-culturize Sikhism (Jacobsen 2012). In a parallel fashion, albeit with a different gender sub-text, one young female informant in Havelock Rd.…”

“…In this paper, however, we aim to understand such domestication from the inside out. While gurdwaras can also be approached through other categories, for instance as places of education or royal palaces and courts (Myrvold 2007;Jacobsen 2012), here we investigate how a Sikh temple itself is made into a home-like space, and how this interplays with the domestic cultures and routines of those who attend it.…”