BECOMING SIKH: SIKH YOUTH IDENTITIES AND THE MULTICULTURAL IMAGINARY by KALBIR HEER B.A., University College of the Cariboo, 1998 B.Ed., The University of British Columbia, 1999 M.A., Gonzaga University, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (Educational Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March 2018 ©Kalbir Heer, 2018 Abstract This dissertation explores the lives of second and third generation Sikh youth in the Greater Vancouver area in relation to the ways they think about their identities. As racialized youth growing up in a major Canadian urban center, being situated within an array of various ethnic, racial, religious, and gender differences plays an important role in how participants recognize what it means to be Sikh, and the potential to become differently. Particularly relevant in this study is an investigation into the ways competing discourses of multiculturalism both facilitates the way participants “do” their identities, and also shapes the ways Sikh youth come to (mis)recognize the multicultural “others”. Through small group and individual interviews, youth theorizing on the repetition, regulation and re-signification of identity categories is explored. Relying significantly on Judith Butler's theory of performativity, and Michel Foucault’s discussions of discourse, knowledge, and power, multiculturalism is taken up as an important societal discourse which requires racialized youth to perform their identities in everyday multicultural context such as schools. In other words, multiculturalism is theorized beyond policy and curriculum debates to investigate how youth “do multiculturalism” in different contexts through various embodied practices which constitute and regulate claims to a Sikh identity. Based on an analysis of interview transcripts with 25 self-identified Sikh youth (ages 13-25), it is argued that an important consequence of living in a “multicultural” society as understood by participants is the recognition of self and others through three frames of recognition. These “multicultural frames of recognition” include the ways Sikh youth come to recognize a discursive whiteness, discourses about racialized others, and discourses about other Sikh communities. It is argued that subjection through the discourses which structure these three “multicultural frames of recognition” contribute to participants’ understanding of the diverse racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities in modern day Vancouver, while foreshadowing the constitution and constraints of the identification process for Sikh youth within the multicultural imaginary. ii Lay Summary The goal of this dissertation is to address how Sikh youth come to understand their identities in Greater Vancouver. A major point of analysis is how youth understandings of multiculturalism informs the ways they perform their identities in everyday contexts such as schools, and also structures how participants recognize the multicultural “others”. The relation to “others” is informed by discourses about race, ethnicity, religion, and gender which structure understanding of difference, and constitute and regulate what it means to be Sikh. It is argued that discourses of multiculturalism set the stage for three multicultural frames of recognition to inform participant understandings of the self and other: inter-group differences between Sikhs and living in a “white society”, inter-group differences between Sikhs and “racialized” others, and intra-group differences within the Sikh community. These frames require recognition of differences, and the significance for the constitution of youth subjectivities and identities will be investigated. iii Preface This dissertation is the original work of the author, Kalbir Heer. I conceptualized and designed the study. In addition, I conducted all interviews and analyzed the data with guidance from committee members who will be recognized in the Acknowledgements section. Ethics approval was obtained from The University of British Columbia, Behavioural Research Ethics Board on February 2, 2012. The UBC Behavioural Research Ethics Board number is H11-02517. iv Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................................... ii Lay Summary ...........................................................................................................................................iii Preface ........................................................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................... v Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1 Sikh Youth and the Multicultural Imaginary ............................................................ 1 1.1 Imaging Multiculturalism .................................................................................................... 2 1.1.1 Framing the Multicultural Others ................................................................................ 3 1.2 Purpose of the Study............................................................................................................. 5 1.3 Setting-Up the Study: What is to come? .............................................................................. 9 1.4 Theoretical Framework: Subjects, Subjection, and Subjectivity .......................................... 9 1.5 Performing Sikh ................................................................................................................. 13 1.6 Multicultural Performativity ............................................................................................... 16 1.6.1 Performing Everyday Multiculturalism ..................................................................... 17 1.7 The Lower Mainland and the Sikh Diaspora ...................................................................... 18 1.7.1 Sikh Youth in the Lower Mainland ........................................................................... 20 1.8 Contextualizing the Study: Further Conversations within Critical Literature .................... 21 1.8.1 Youth of Color in the Literature ................................................................................ 23 1.8.2 Sikh Youth in the Literature ...................................................................................... 26 1.8.3 Accommodation and Culture Clash........................................................................... 26 1.9 Significance and Concluding Remarks .............................................................................. 31 1.10 Setting the Stage ............................................................................................................... 33 Chapter 2 Research Methodologies and Practices ...................................................................... 34 2.1 Cut 1: Dis/continuity: Quantitative Beginnings, Qualitative Yearnings ............................ 37 2.1.1 Quantitative Beginnings ........................................................................................... 37 2.2 Poststructural Cuts .............................................................................................................. 40 2.2.1 Troubling Authentic Experience and Voicing Participants: ..................................... 41 2.3 Cut 2: Contested Eth’No’graphy: Methodological Cuts .................................................... 44 2.3.1 “Dis”approval and the Construction of Knowledge ................................................. 46 2.4 Research in Process: New Direction, New Cuts ................................................................ 48 2.4.1 The Participants ........................................................................................................ 49 2.5 Data Cuts: Individual and Group Interviews ...................................................................... 51 2.6 Interview Protocol and Contexts ........................................................................................ 53 2.6.1 Interview Scripts and Questions ................................................................................ 55 2.6.2 Contexts for Interviews ............................................................................................. 57 2.6.3 Ambivalence of Coding and Analysis ....................................................................... 59 2.7 Cutting Inside and Outside: Insider/Outsider Researcher ................................................... 62 2.7.1 Researcher, Language, and Context: Constructing the Insider ................................. 62 2.7.2 Speaking Punjabi ....................................................................................................... 65 2.7.3 Outsider Within: Participants Cut Back .................................................................... 67 2.8 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 71 v Chapter 3 Multicultural Perspectives .............................................................................................. 73 3.1 Mapping