Transnational affects, transnational worldings: Sikhs sounding sacred songs, making multiple worlds

Abstract

In this paper, I expand on the concepts of “worlding” and “transnational affect” to analyse how the sounding of sacred song in transnational spaces animates “affective alliances” that enable the building of local and global religious communities, but at the same time engender multiple forms of belonging and complex identities. I focus on a minority religious tradition from India, Sikhism. Over the last century or so, Sikhs have migrated to many countries across all continents, taking their sacred songs with them. They have attempted to integrate into their new locations while also building strong affective connections with a transnational Sikh imaginary shaped by shared aesthetics and ethics. In this paper, drawing on stories of Sikhs from Kenya and the USA, I explore the transnational role of sacred songs that circulate via musicians, amateur and professional, as well as media and broadcasts, to propose that the transnational sounding of sacred songs is a significant invigorator of the everyday affective processes that shape life-worlds and subjectivities with respect to social differences such as caste, race, and gender. Further, and importantly, I argue that the accruals of affect, and the resulting individual subjectivities and lifeworlds are diverse and fluid.