Sikh Philosophy and the Diasporic Impulse

This lecture examines some seminal moments and motivating impulses in the rise and development of Sikh philosophy from its pre-philosophical roots to its current state as an emerging field of inquiry. Against the somewhat clichéd image of Sikh philosophy as a discourse tethered to an ethno-religious context, I bring attention to a neglected impulse that motivates Sikh philosophy, namely, diasporicity. Not to be confused with conventional understandings of diaspora as a sociological descriptor of peoples’ uprooting from a homeland, diasporicity functions here as a critical concept in its own right with implications for how we think about the nature of Sikh philosophy and its purpose in a decolonizing world.

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