The irreducible otherness of desi and desire in Singapore’s gurdwaras: moral boundary-making in the shadows of a multicultural society

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the emergence of new multiculturalisms taking root in Asia by exploring how value-based frameworks and moral judgements are deployed to create new lines of difference within co-ethnic communities. These frameworks and judgements cause multiculturalism to become a more subjective, and thus splintered construct that is increasingly decoupled from state discourse. Further, it considers how religious spaces are typically associated with the performance of morally “right” attitudes and behaviours, and therefore provide fertile yet underexplored sites through which multicultural subjectivities are formed and enacted. It illustrates these ideas through an empirical examination of how moral boundary-making within Singapore’s Sikh community creates new lines of difference that renders migrant workers from the Punjab (“desis”) irreducibly other. Drawing on 27 in-depth interviews conducted with Sikhs living in Singapore, the article considers how co-ethnic encounters within Sikh temples (“gurdwaras”) create a sense of (in)distinction between desirous and desired subjects.