Seeking the Image of ‘Unmarked’ Sikh Women: Text, Sacred Stitches, Turban
With the inauguration of the Khalsa in 1699 by the tenth guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, a new understanding of ‘being Sikh’ was put in place. In examining the earliest prescriptive texts of the Khalsa, manifestations of Sikh religio-cultural identity and visual distinctiveness were deeply con...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
[2015]
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| In: |
Religion & gender
Year: 2015, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 35-51 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Sikhs
/ Woman
/ Gender-specific role
/ Headgear
/ Ritual
/ History 1700-2015
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism NBE Anthropology TJ Modern history TK Recent history |
| Further subjects: | B
Sikhs and gender / Sikhism
B Turbans B Materiality B phulkaris B Sikhism / Sikhs and women B religious identity construction |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | With the inauguration of the Khalsa in 1699 by the tenth guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, a new understanding of ‘being Sikh’ was put in place. In examining the earliest prescriptive texts of the Khalsa, manifestations of Sikh religio-cultural identity and visual distinctiveness were deeply connected to the male Sikh body. This study locates Sikh women within a number of these early ritual and textual ordinances while also exploring how Sikh female religio-cultural materiality is contradistinct to the normative Khalsa male body. The production of phulkaris, a form of embroidered head covering (but having other uses as well) was historically associated with Sikh women and are here examined as alternate forms of religious belonging, ritual production and devotion. This study concludes with an examination of how the turban, for a small number of diasporic Sikh women, can be understood both as a rejection of traditional Sikh female ideals, as well as a novel form of Sikh women’s identity construction that is closely aligned with Sikh masculine ideals. |
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| ISSN: | 1878-5417 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion & gender
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.18352/rg.10085 |