(Un)mapping the Punjab onto Singapore's Gurdwaras: Diasporic territorialities and decolonial spaces of Sikh socialisation

• Main Authors: SHEE, Siew Ying, WOODS, Orlando
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2025
• Subjects: Asian Studies; Human Geography; Race and Ethnicity; Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/4148
• Institution: Singapore Management University

This paper explores an alternative territorial sensibility – ‘diasporic territoriality’ – that is rooted in the search for belonging outside of a putative ‘homeland’ amongst dis/placed communities. Drawing on ethnographic research with 26 members of Singapore’s Sikh diaspora, we examine the everyday spaces of diasporic belonging that simultaneously reproduce and resist colonial imaginings of Punjabi territory. Many first-generation diasporas continue to define themselves through regional affiliations inherited from colonial legacies, with Singapore’s gurdwaras serving as a spatial ‘fix’ for mapping territorial logics from the Punjab. However, these colonial imaginaries are increasingly contested and ‘unmapped’ by younger generations who seek to socialise in alternative spaces of belonging based on shared pieties and upbringing. By reimagining belonging beyond essentialist framings of home-diaspora connections, the idea of ‘diasporic territoriality’ contributes to decolonising prevailing understandings of territory and belonging. Doing so provides a provocative counterpoint to re-evaluate state-sponsored narratives of integration within the context of multiculturalism.