From ‘overseas Sikhs’ to ‘the Sikh diaspora’ to ‘global Sikhs’: Retrospect and prospects in the study of Sikhs beyond the subcontinent

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this slightly revised version of my presentation of 4 September 2019 at the inaugural conference of The Centre for Sikh and Panjabi Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, U.K., I identify and begin to elaborate upon an historical sequence of five frames – ‘overseas Sikhs,’ Punjabi/Sikh ‘migrant communities,’ ‘the Sikh diaspora,’ ‘transnational’ Sikhs, and ‘global Sikhs’ – through which scholars have analyzed the lives of Sikhs living outside the Indian subcontinent.