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Sacred distinctions: Law and the political regulation of Sikh Gurdwaras in British Columbia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Bonar Buffam
Bonar Buffam*
Affiliation:
Department of History and Sociology, Irving K Barber School of Arts and Sciences, UBC Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
*
Bonar Buffam, Department of History and Sociology, Irving K Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UBC Okanagan Campus, Kelowna, BC, Canada., Email: bonar.buffam@ubc.ca
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Abstract

Since the 1990s, a sizeable body of case law has formed in the Canadian province of British Columbia in response to disputes over the political leadership of local gurdwaras, the name for Sikh places of worship and assembly. Although the disputes stemmed from religious and political disagreements, the legal issues addressed by the courts concern the proper bureaucratic administration of Sikh institutions that have been legally incorporated as nonprofit “societies.” Through a textual analysis of 55 legal decisions related to gurdwara leadership disputes, this article explains how the courts have decided these cases without ceding the pretense of secular neutrality by mobilizing a series of shifting discursive distinctions between religion, politics, materiality, civil society, and bureaucratic procedure. Building on critical secular and sociolegal theory, this article tracks how law is able to establish and extend the state's jurisdiction over Sikh practices and populations through its capacity to inscribe and delimit the social and political parameters of religion. It illustrates how this case law serves as a mechanism of racial governance by extending forms of surveillance and legal intervention that work to embed the diasporic practices of Sikh communities within the spheres of Canadian state power.

Type
Orginal Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 2021 , pp. 343 - 358
Copyright
© 2021 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

How to cite this article: Buffam B. Sacred distinctions: Law and the political regulation of Sikh Gurdwaras in British Columbia. Law & Society Rev. 2021;55:343-358. https://doi.org/10. 1111/lasr.12549

An earlier draft of this article was presented at the Technologies of Law and Religion Symposium at Monash University Prato Center. This manuscript benefited from the research assistance of Jasmeet Bahia, Laura Mudde, and Dilsora Komil-Burley as well as the generous feedback of Renisa Mawani, Richard Mohr, Ondine Park, Heidi Bickis, Jessica Stites Mor, Massimo Leone, and the anonymous reviewers selected by Law & Society Review.

Funding information Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Grant/Award Number: F17-04471

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