Documentary practices: Race,bureaucracy, and the legal regulation of gurdwaras in British Columbia

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, disputes over the political leadership of gurdwaras in British Columbia have formed the basis of a substantial body of case law, which has afforded courts different forms of authority over the affairs of these Sikh institutions. By analyzing 55 legal decisions related to gurdwara leadership, this article examines how law has transformed the political conditions of local Sikh populations by enfolding litigants in bureaucratic practices of documentation. Particular attention is paid to how these documentary practices are often animated by the racial spectre of fraudulence, which shapes how local Sikhs are governed as religious and racialized minorities.