Introduction

“I’m a Punjabi-speaking Swedish Sikh with family members and friends all over the world.” A statement like this, which in this case was expressed in an interview with a young Sikh in Sweden, could most probably be similarly heard with local nuances in other geographical contexts, and raises several queries about religious, cultural and linguistic identifications and belonging. In the everyday lives of young Sikhs at different locations, the Sikh traditions and practices are being interpreted and translated into new cultural contexts and languages. The Sikh religion, which has been estimated to include approximately 25 million adherents around the world, has increasingly become a culturally and linguistically diverse community with new generations that have multicultural and transnational lifestyles. This book brings together studies of religious identifications, representations and translations among Sikh youth and young emerging adults in transnational and global contexts. Previous studies of young Sikhs, who can be categorized as persons identifying themselves, in some way or another, with the Sikh religion and the various practices and traditions within Sikhism, have primarily focused on Sikh children and adolescents in English-speaking countries with large Sikh populations. Several studies have, for example, been conducted on the second- and third-generation Sikhs, their parents and intergenerational differences in Canada, the United Kingdom and the USA. ¹ These contributions have illustrated various strategies of cultural adaptation and integration in host societies and how young Sikhs and their families experience cultural possibilities and barriers on their way to becoming citizens of multicultural nations. The research literature on young Sikhs in the phase of “emerging adulthood” and young adults is a newer field of study, ² just as the academic interest for Sikhs in other parts of the world with transnational networks is an emerging research field. ³ The chapters of this book describe and analyse how Sikh youth and young emerging adults, who have grown up and reside primarily in various European countries and North America under different cultural and linguistic conditions, may interpret, articulate and negotiate religious identities, traditions and authorities through practices and narratives on individual and collective levels. Several chapters highlight the youth’s creative means to solve tensions between their families and expectations of the majority society, between the Punjabi culture and religious values, as well as generational transmission of religious, cultural and linguistic traditions, and the impact on their identifications and identity formation processes.