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Being Punjabi Sikh in Chennai: Women's Everyday Religion in an Internal Indian Diaspora

Randhawa, Amanda
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3971-0814
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555660281989779

Abstract Details

2019, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Comparative Studies.
Sikhs are members of a religion founded in the 15th century. Most hail from the Punjab, a cultural/linguistic region now divided between India and Pakistan. However, Sikhs are globally dispersed, both within India and around the globe, and maintain strong communities in diverse locations. Most existing studies of the Sikh diaspora focus on communities in Europe or settler colonial societies such as Canada and the United States, and the majority overlook the histories and experiences of women. My dissertation, by contrast, investigates Sikhs living as a minority community within India, 1,500 miles south of the Sikh cultural and religious center in Punjab, with a focus on women. Sustained contradictions mark Punjabi Sikh women’s culturally hybrid lifestyles in Chennai, which women perceive as moving between cosmopolitanism and the maintenance of traditional gender roles and cultural values. I examine how women’s rituals, narratives, and everyday practices are both a response to and reaction against hegemonic expectations, such as the expectation that women should not socialize outside the home unnecessarily. Focusing on the discourses around and performances of Sikh women’s religious practices in Chennai, my dissertation pursues three objectives: 1) Analyzing how Punjabi Sikh women in Chennai negotiate their religious and cultural identities and hierarchies within and without the frames of institutionalized religion and Punjabi cultural expectations and norms; 2) Describing and theorizing the ways that being a Sikh woman in Chennai creates relationships and understandings of Punjab and Tamil Nadu; and 3) Contextualizing women’s public and private religious gathering places and the religious, social, and cultural discourses and narratives invoked through them. My study shows how women’s conceptualization and maintenance of cultural obligations simultaneously challenge and affirm established gender norms within Sikh culture, religiosity, and sacred space, offering both new and traditional modes of being Sikh. I contribute to larger questions about diasporic resettlement and its relationship to gender, including how migrant groups learn to coexist with diverse communities and to negotiate gendered, religious, and cultural identities.
Amy Shuman, Dr. (Advisor)
Hugh Urban, Dr. (Advisor)
Mytheli Srinivas, Dr. (Committee Member)
Murphy Anne, Dr. (Committee Member)
255 p.
Asian Studies; Religion; Womens Studies
vernacular religion; diaspora; Sikhism; Punjabi; folklore; religious studies; gender; narrative

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Randhawa, A. (2019). Being Punjabi Sikh in Chennai: Women's Everyday Religion in an Internal Indian Diaspora [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555660281989779

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Randhawa, Amanda. Being Punjabi Sikh in Chennai: Women's Everyday Religion in an Internal Indian Diaspora. 2019. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555660281989779.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Randhawa, Amanda. "Being Punjabi Sikh in Chennai: Women's Everyday Religion in an Internal Indian Diaspora." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2019. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1555660281989779

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1555660281989779
© 2019, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.