Introduction: ‘Shoot the ‘Pakis!’’ The Art of Storytelling
Chapter 1: Deconstructing Sikhs
Chapter 2: The Development of the Sikh Diaspora
Chapter 3: A History of Conflict
Chapter 4: Explaining Conflict
Chapter 5: Sweet Seduction: ‘Forced’ Conversion Narratives
Chapter 6: Accounting for Sikh and Muslim Conflict
Chapter 7: Sikhs and the British Ethnoscapes
Chapter 8: Sikh NOT Muslim- Questioning Sikh Islamophobia
Chapter 9: ‘Who is a Sikh?'
Conclusion
Katy P. Sian is a lecturer in sociology at The University of Manchester. Previously she was a postdoctoral research fellow at The University of Leeds where she also completed her PhD. She takes a key interest in debates surrounding racism and ethnicity studies, sociology, Sikh studies, Islamophobia, postcolonialism, Diaspora and South Asian identity.
This book may be located within diaspora studies and the study of
intercultural and interethnic relations, and more broadly, within
the discourse on narrative performance where identity is viewed as
intrinsically linked to storytelling. Using postcolonial theorists
such as Said, Foucault, and Barthes, Sian attempts to interrogate
existing narrative/s of ‘Sikhness’ that are rooted in tales of
‘Sikhs and their battle against the Muslim enemy.’ It is a battle
centered on the notion of ‘brave, courageous and heroic Sikhs’ who
emerge victorious in the face of ‘oppression…and tyranny [by] the
Muslim antagonist’ (2). Stories, she rightly argues, shape
identity. . . .Sian’s narrative questions the present discourse and
masterfully weaves her own story. . . .[S]killfully expressed.
*Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations*
Unsettling Sikh & Muslim Conflict takes central topics of our time
—diaspora politics, postcoloniality, anti-terrorism, identity,
immigrants and national belonging, Islamophobia, religion,
secularism, and race— and places them under a new, penetrating
light. This book radically shifts the focus from the current
preoccupation with ‘multiculturalism versus security,' to a more
critical terrain of how subjects and nations come into being.
Uniquely, the argument focuses not only on majority-minority
relations, but on how relations among minorities are articulated
and rearticulated through dominant frameworks that perpetuate
racism, and that simultaneously invite/require Sikhs to align
themselves to Islamophobic imaginings of the nation. This book
compels readers to re-think how we understand Sikh identity, the
political nature of Sikh-Muslim relations, and the possibilities of
decolonization. At the same time, it not only challenges us to
re-imagine how we understand Sikh diasporas in this ‘age of
terror’, but also how political constructions of religion and
Otherness more generally are produced in ways that secure both
hegemonic practices of nation-building and colonized formations of
the ‘model minority.' Katy P. Sian offers a compelling and
insightful analysis that should be read by scholars and
non-academics concerned with the politics of difference.
*Rita Kaur Dhamoon, University of Victoria*
In this groundbreaking and challenging book, Katy Sian explores the
under researched and often fraught issue of relationships between
minority ethnic groups in the UK. Combining historical and textual
analysis with empirical research and personal reflections, and
tracing the complex connections and disjunctions between South Asia
and Britain, Sian provides a provocative insight into the formation
of contemporary intra-Br-Asian and diasporic identities. This book
poses difficult and important questions for researchers of race,
ethnicity, religion and identity, and anyone who wishes to
understand the textures and tensions of modern multi-ethnic
Britain.
*Claire Alexander, University of Manchester*
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