ABSTRACT
This chapter charts the hidden history of Punjabi Sikhs in Fiji across the twentieth century. The scholarship about South Asians in Fiji focuses on indenture, obscuring the history of voluntary migrants such as the Sikhs from north India in the early 1900s. This unique history offers new insights into the placemaking imaginaries and practices that were deeply connected to but spilled over beyond the Indian Ocean. It explores two defining aspects of the lives of Fiji Sikhs – their seafaring journeys across the Indian Ocean (the “ship”) and their sacred geography (the “anchor”). Their history is situated within shifting transnational networks in which the notion of home was continually reimagined, unsettled and elusive. It examines the rich and multi-layered cartographies of affiliation and belonging that are revealed by community narratives that remain unrecorded in official archives. This approach highlights the efforts of individuals to survive, negotiate, and utilize their circumstances for the best interests of their families and communities. Within the global Sikh diaspora, Fiji symbolizes the ephemerality of home where the enduring legacy is the institution of the Gurdwara (Sikh house of worship).
