Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Presents Paper in Sweden

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Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Presents Paper in Sweden

June 22, 2012

Dr. Nadhra Shahbaz Naeem Khan, Visiting Faculty at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law (SHSSL), LUMS, presented a paper at the Inaugural Conference of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies: ‘Re/theorising heritage’ June 5-8 2012, organised by the International Journal of Heritage Studies and the Heritage Seminar at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The title of her paper was “The Sikh Diaspora and their Heritage: ‘The West’ goes back to ‘the rest’”, presented in the session S011 “When ‘the rest’ enters ‘the West’: Heritage in a Postcolonial Age,” organised by Prof. Dr. Sybille Frank, Technical University Berlin.

Keeping Sikh art and architecture in view, the model proposed for the session was analysed in its stage 1, i.e., “the West enters the Rest” before moving to the next stage. The paper focused on the Sikh Diaspora living in “the West”-- America/Canada/UK /Australia etc. -- going back to the Pakistani and Indian Punjab to get acquainted with their heritage. Born and bred in the West and familiar with the western mode of heritage preservation, the reactions and expectations of these “Western” Sikhs from a land that holds great historical and religious significance and used to be their homeland at some point were discussed.

Feedback from an online survey circulated among the Sikh Diaspora in April and May 2012 was used for the purpose. Moreover, the paper also tried to look at how ready is Pakistan as “the rest”; struggling with a plethora of issues, to receive these “heritage tourists” in a meaningful way and measures that need to be taken to avoid the loss and neglect of Sikh heritage.