Creating Gurdwaras, Narrating Histories: Perspectives on the Sikh Diaspora in Italy

Abstract

The creation of places of worship in the Indian diaspora has received due attention in social sciences. The current literature has rightfully highlighted the role of religious places in connecting ethnic minority fellows across generations, in promoting continuity with different diasporic locations and in allowing migrants to enter the public sphere in receiving contexts. A minor attention has been paid to how communities’ internal differences and potential conflicts are reflected in migration histories and how this informs heterogeneous understanding of religious places. The article explores how the establishment of Sikh gurdwaras in Central Italy is made differently meaningful in generational migration histories and how this process takes different forms in various Italian localities. It particularly focuses on how religious places are ascribed shifting—and often conflicting—meanings according to the biographical time of migrant experiences in the new territory. The article argues that the public recognition of gurdwaras partly results from Sikh migrants’ spatial move from large metropolitan areas to semi-urban and rural localities. This important passage reflects collective histories of transformation from irregularity to temporarily regular status, as well as a progressive emancipation from bonded labour conditions promoted by ethnic (and Italian) fellows.