MUSIC OF THE SIKH DIASPORA: DEVOTIONAL SOUNDS,MUSICAL MEMORY AND CULTURAL IDENTITY

This paper explores the role of devotional music in the construction of Sikh identity in diasporic contexts. In particular, it examines a heterodox Sikh community in the UK and an orthodox Sikh community in Hong Kong from a comparative perspective, showing how music helps to clarify continuities and discontinuities in Sikhism worldwide. I provide ethnographic accounts of musical performances in different locales within gurdwara-s. Following a summary of current conventions in Sikh music performance and pedagogy, two ethnographic accounts are provided. The first is a musical ethnography of the Namdhari Gurdwara in Leicester where Hindustani classical music is performed alongside traditional ritual genres. The second site is a similar ethnographic study of the Khalsa Diwan Gurdwara in Hong Kong where the issues of diasporic identity and musical memory are foregrounded.