Sikhs in America – an approach to enumerating and understanding a community (formerly Sikh Census Approach Guide)

UPDATE: Thank you for all of the generous support! Please see the attached Draft Project Summary in the documents section for an update on what we accomplished this summer with your funding.

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This project is to sponsor 2 months for Dr. Cynthia Mahmood to develop a Sikh Census Approach Guide. The guide will aim to answer questions such as: How should the Sikh community go about determining their characteristics across the globe? What should Sikhs capture and how might they go about this? She will connect with experts in the field to draw upon best practices when developing the guide.

Why is this effort needed? Since Panth is such an important concept in Sikhi, the dramatic changes in the parameters of the community since the late 1970s invite an academic exploration of what Panth means no longer constrained by the borders or culture of Punjab. This is both a social and a theological question, and it could be a political one as well.

For a potential second phase of this work, Dr. Mahmood would like to bring together Sikh leaders and scholars who study Sikhs to confer on this question: What is the meaning of Panth? They will all have as grounding the same information: the census. Perhaps new means of communication or organization will emerge from this conference. Perhaps new interpretations of what community means in the global setting will blossom.

This project will take place from June to August 2012. In that timeframe, Dr. Mahmood will develop a guide the community can use to execute its own North American Census. If time permits, a pilot census of the local Sikh Sangat in Michigan will serve as an example for other states to follow.

The guide will be posted back to this page for the consumption by the entire community. As a donor to this effort, you be provided with a prerelease copy!

The funds requested of $7000 are to sponsor the time of Dr. Mahmood over the summer and represent $6,000 in salary and $1,000 in expenses. It is important to note that this $6,000 is a reduced rate from her normal salary.