scholarly journals Exploring Sikh Youth in Toronto and Issues of Identity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jagjeet Kaur Gill

My paper investigates ten Punjabi-Sikh youth from the ages of 18 to 25, across Ontario, this study attempts to answer how Sikh youth identify themselves and what external and social influences affect perception and identity. As Punjabi-Sikh youth struggle to find their identity in the midst of competing expectations, they may face institutional and structural barriers that may further complicate their identity. While there is extensive literature on the reception of first generation Sikhs in Canada, there is minimal information on how second-generation Sikhs have integrated within the mainstream culture. There are many important questions to be answered, such as, do Western euro-centric values and beliefs by the mainstream contradict with traditional and cultural beliefs? How do youth accommodate some cultural and religious values over others? Are there multiple oppressions, which are in conflict with retaining an ethnic and cultural identity? How do the values, expectations, and beliefs of Punjabi-Sikh parents differ from their children's? How do youth negotiate their cultural and religious identity in the face of conflicting expectations from parents, school, and their community? These are just some of the questions that will be explored in this study.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jagjeet Kaur Gill

My paper investigates ten Punjabi-Sikh youth from the ages of 18 to 25, across Ontario, this study attempts to answer how Sikh youth identify themselves and what external and social influences affect perception and identity. As Punjabi-Sikh youth struggle to find their identity in the midst of competing expectations, they may face institutional and structural barriers that may further complicate their identity. While there is extensive literature on the reception of first generation Sikhs in Canada, there is minimal information on how second-generation Sikhs have integrated within the mainstream culture. There are many important questions to be answered, such as, do Western euro-centric values and beliefs by the mainstream contradict with traditional and cultural beliefs? How do youth accommodate some cultural and religious values over others? Are there multiple oppressions, which are in conflict with retaining an ethnic and cultural identity? How do the values, expectations, and beliefs of Punjabi-Sikh parents differ from their children's? How do youth negotiate their cultural and religious identity in the face of conflicting expectations from parents, school, and their community? These are just some of the questions that will be explored in this study.


2021 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 259-274
Author(s):  
Sadie S. Amini ◽  
Angela-MinhTu D. Nguyen

Religious-minority immigrants must negotiate both their religious and host cultural (e.g., American) identities; however, the duality of these identities is rarely examined in relation to adjustment. In this study, we tested whether a religious-American identity centrality could predict better adjustment over and above religious identity centrality and American identity centrality. Moreover, based on the Integrative Psychological Model of Biculturalism, we investigated whether the harmony perceived between one’s religious and American identities could mediate the relationship between religious-American identity centrality and adjustment, and between perceived discrimination and adjustment. With data from 130 first-generation Muslim American and Jewish American participants, we found support for most hypotheses. Although a more central religious-American identity predicted better adjustment, it did not predict better adjustment over and above religious identity centrality and American identity centrality. More importantly, religious-American harmony mediated the positive association between religious-American identity centrality and adjustment, and the negative association between perceived discrimination and adjustment. Implications of our findings for research on dual identities are discussed.


First Monday ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Cyr ◽  
Tara Tobin Cataldo ◽  
Brittany Brannon ◽  
Amy Buhler ◽  
Ixchel Faniel ◽  
...  

In a digital environment, students have difficulty determining whether an information resource comes from a book, magazine, journal, blog, or other container, and lose the contextual information that these containers provide. This study of students from primary through graduate school looks at their ability to identify the containers of information resources, and how this ability is affected by their demographic traits, the resource features they attended to, and their behaviors during a task-based simulation. The results indicate that correct container identification requires deep engagement with a resource. Those who attended to cues such as genre and source were better able to identify container, while those who paid attention to heuristics such as its visual appearance and URL were not. Demographic characteristics, including educational cohort and first-generation student status, also had an effect.


2019 ◽  
pp. 221-243
Author(s):  
Martin Pugh

This chapter demonstrates how, despite their experience of prejudice, Muslims became involved in a gradual process of integration into mainstream society; in this period they largely thought of themselves as ‘black’ or as Asians, rather than as Muslims. First-generation British Muslims had been fairly relaxed about social behaviour and religious observation. Meanwhile, the second generation of Muslims were not in Britain as temporary economic migrants, and consequently were less passive than their predecessors, more confident and aware of their opportunities and rights in Britain. For them, integration into mainstream society went hand in hand with an increasing assertiveness in the face of prejudice and an awareness of their identity as Anglo-Asians. By the 1980s and 1990s, the younger generation were becoming alienated from their parents due to familiarity with a secular society; many regarded the world of the mosque as boring. Muslims also began to reflect mainstream practice in other ways: more women in their twenties remained unmarried and, with their better language skills and qualifications, they were more likely to be in paid employment.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-105
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson

AbstractContinental philosophy underwent a ‘return to religion’ or a ‘theological turn’ in the late 20th Century. And yet any conversation between continental philosophy and theology must begin by addressing the perceived distance between them: that one is concerned with destroying all normative, metaphysical order (continental philosophy’s task) and the other with preserving religious identity and community in the face of an increasingly secular society (theology’s task). Colby Dickinson argues inContinental Philosophy and Theologyrather that perhaps such a tension is constitutive of the nature of order, thinking and representation which typically take dualistic forms and which might be rethought, though not necessarily abolished. Such a shift in perspective even allows one to contemplate this distance as not opting for one side over the other or by striking a middle ground, but as calling for a nondualistic theology that measures the complexity and inherently comparative nature of theological inquiry in order to realign theology’s relationship to continental philosophy entirely.


Author(s):  
Jovi Chris Okpodu

The concept of traditional religion in the twenty-first century is that which seeks regurgitation. This is so because traditional religion and its values and beliefs are constantly being challenged in the face of Western religion and its values. This chapter is on the contemporary Nigerian movie Scorpion God as directed by Nonso Okonkwo, and its interpretation and presentation of concepts relating to Nigeria's traditional religion. This study takes a look at traditional religion, the patterns, symbols, and values that have remained relevant till date. It examines the theories and ideologies influencing these ways of life in order to correct the errors presented in this Nigerian film. The study reveals that traditional religion as reflected by Nigerian films is a misinterpretation and misrepresentation, and the findings suggest an urgent need for education in order to correct this error in the evaluation to traditional religion and its place in the socio-cultural life of Nigeria.


2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-66
Author(s):  
Anthony M. Gunde

The rise of the internet has offered the opportunity for the news media to communicate with audiences in many significant ways that may have profound consequences in the shaping of public opinion and transforming lives in the global sphere. Through a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this article examines ways in which online news media could be used to reinforce gender stereotypes by promoting patriarchal religious beliefs and how this may have huge implications on women’s empowerment with regard to political leadership roles in developing democracies. The analysis is drawn from the 2014 Malawi elections, in which a major opposition party used a campaign slogan peppered with sexist religious and cultural connotations to ridicule and vote out of office southern Africa’s first ever female President – Joyce Banda and her People Party (PP). In May 2014, Malawi held national elections and the main contestants were former President Banda representing the PP, Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Lazarus Chakwera of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and Atupele Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Mutharika and the DPP won the elections to wrestle away the presidency from Banda and her People’s Party. This article discusses the campaign slogan – Sesa Joyce Sesa – created by the DPP to attack former President Banda in which Malawi’s significant online news media sites played a critical role in the diffusion of the gendered campaign mantra to resonate with the religious identity of majority the electorate. The article reflects on the potential of new media to consolidate deep-rooted religious and cultural beliefs that marginalise women for leadership positions and the effect this may have on bridging gender inequalities, particularly in political representation in developing democracies.


2020 ◽  
pp. 215-259
Author(s):  
Karim Mattar

This chapter addresses the carefully (self-)cultivated image of Orhan Pamuk as a worldly, cosmopolitan, and secular-liberal writer. This image, I argue, has come to define the aesthetics and politics, the ethos, of his novels in their worldly reception, and has functioned to undermine the nature and extent of his engagement with the local (especially his native city, Istanbul, and its Ottoman, Islamic heritage). I trace this argument through a sustained focus on The Black Book as this novel has been translated and read in Britain and the United States. Drawing on translation theory, I show that both English versions of the novel are unable to capture the logic and significance of Pamuk’s culturally-specific use of language, and have influenced its Anglo-American (mis)reading as a postmodernist work. In my counter-reading, I argue that anything but a postmodernist deconstruction of myths of national and religious identity, The Black Book in fact comprises an evocation of Istanbul’s Ottoman, Islamic heritage in the face of a Turkish secular modernity by which this heritage was historically repressed. I detail this argument through close attention to Pamuk’s treatment of Sufism and Hurufism. The Black Book, I conclude, inscribes what I call “cultural neo-Ottomanism” as form.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Allen Gershon ◽  
Adrian D. Pantoja ◽  
J. Benjamin Taylor

AbstractIt is often assumed that Latinos in the United States are deeply religious, and that this religious identity plays an important role in shaping their political beliefs and behaviors. A more controversial though unexplored proposition is that Latinos may not be as religious as is commonly believed and that forces beyond their religiosity play more prominent roles in shaping their political engagement. Relying on data from the 2006 Latino National Survey, we examine secularism — measured by church attendance — and civic engagement among Latinos. Our efforts are to analyze the social forces that shape levels of religiosity and find that generational status plays a significant role. Additionally, we further find that while church attendance declines among later generations, second and third generation Latinos have higher levels of civic engagement than their first generation peers, indicating that a decline in church participation does not depress political participation among later generations of Latinos.


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