Document generated on 12/24/2023 1:54 p.m.
Culture
The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity,
and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages
Karim-Aly Kassam
Volume 17, Number 1-2, 1997
URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1084043ar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1084043ar
See table of contents
Publisher(s)
Canadian Anthropology Society / Société Canadienne d’Anthropologie (CASCA),
formerly/anciennement Canadian Ethnology Society / Société Canadienne
d’Ethnologie
ISSN
0229-009X (print)
2563-710X (digital)
Explore this journal
Cite this review
Kassam, K.-A. (1997). Review of [The Construction of Religious Boundaries:
Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages]. Culture, 17(1-2), 134–135.
https://doi.org/10.7202/1084043ar
Tous droits réservés © Canadian Anthropology Society / Société Canadienne
This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit
d’Anthropologie (CASCA), formerly/anciennement Canadian Ethnology Society / (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be
Société Canadienne d’Ethnologie, 1997
viewed online.
https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/
This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit.
Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal,
Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to
promote and disseminate research.
https://www.erudit.org/en/
The Skjonsberg and Vuorela chapters provide the
detail for Section V, Efforts to Record Female
Perspectives. Through diaries and story-telling women's, indeed people's, lives are portrayed. Skjonsberg
tells how participatory research is not an alternative to
existing social scientific research but a supplément.
Participatory research widens our perspective, people
informing people gives us a more accurate view of the
diversity of social life. As she says, the "silent majorities" (like women who face more powerful groups) are
given voice. Vuorela gives space for this voice in the
engaging stories told by and about women in Msoga
Village, Tanzania.
In the final Section Bryceson retums again to ask
if we should bury the hoe as we note the transformations of agriculture in African life. What is to be
acknowledged is that women wielding the hoe has not
been displaced in the 'modernising' process. It
endures, as a mainstay, perhaps as a last resort, but,
"...given the individualized nature of hoeing as a physical activity, the hoe has, over time, offered women a
means of supporting themselves and their dependents
with or without male involvement" (p.269).
This volume contributes to the small but growing
academie literature recognising African women's intelligence as well as their hard work as this is delineated
in empirical data using participatory methods that
include women's voices.
*>The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture,
Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition,
by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages.
By Karim-Aly Kassam
University ofCalgary
The changes of the nineteenth century ushered in
by European science and military technology were
remaking the world in fact as well as in the mind. In
fact Britain had established preeminence on the Indian
subcontinent. In mind it changed the way the colonized peoples would perceive themselves as well as
the world around them. It is in this context that Harjot
Oberoi writes about the tension between diversity of
religious practice and the représentation of a modem
homogeneous Sikh identity in India. His central argument is that categories such as Muslim, Sikh and
Hindu were simply irrelevant to the religious life of the
newly colonized peoples of the subcontinent. Religious
life of the people in the pre-colonial period, he maintains, is best characterized as a continuum of overlap-
134 / Comptes rendus
ping communal identifies. Indeed categorizations such
as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Sikhism took
place in the nineteenth century. Oberoi asserts that the
tidy category "Sikh" is a cultural construct resulting
from a mixture of factors such as the impact of modernity, British colonization, the effective use of communications technology, and the desire of certain elite
groups to purge their community of religious plurali-
tyOberoi's description of the Sikh effort in the construction of a religious identity shares résonances with
the struggles of other colonized communities worldwide to undertake reform of religious values and practices in the search for a relevant self-representation.
Subjugation créâtes a deep anxiety among the colonized eûtes caused by strong feelings of religious and
moral superiority juxtaposed against the fact of being a
conquered people. Invariably this leads to critical selfexamination through questioning of what went wrong
and movement towards reform and a new self-representation. Indeed, amongst the Sikh, the process of
self-examination and response to modernity began
among the educated elite. In this sense The Construction
of Religious Boundaries speaks to anyone who perceives
that debilitating anxiety and is interested in the
response of colonized peoples to the challenges of
modernity.
Oberoi's argument echoes David Hume's Naturel
History of Religion in which he maintains that mankind
oscillâtes between polytheism and monotheism, like a
pendulum swinging from a pluralistic, ritual-oriented,
oral tradition to a puritanical, scripturalistic, codified
religious practice. Oberoi meticulously traces the
movement of a plural Sikh framework, consisting of
heterogeneous religious beliefs and practices, to the
dominance of the Tat Khalsa "episteme" subordinating
ail other Sikh traditions. Attempts to force a people
into separate and distinct breeds invariably leads to
misrepresentations. The complicity of the British in the
construction of the identity of the "marshal race"
reveals the web of political motives necessary to produce categories such as the "Sikh".
It is noteworthy that Ernest Gellner in his Muslim
Society argues that under modem conditions Hume's
oscillating pendulum becomes unhinged and moves
overwhelmingly towards a more protestant and less
pluralistic version of religion. The mediating function
of local saints is eroded by the colonial and post-colonial state. Atomised masses identify less with saints
and more with a common national factor.
In this case the formation of a common Sikh ethnie and religious identity was facilitated by communications technology in reaching the rural masses. To his
crédit Oberoi weaves the ideas of Canadian thinkers
such as Harold Adams Innis (implicitly) and Marshall
McLuhan (explicitly) in explaining how print culture
played a rôle in the création of monopolies of knowledge and formulation of a Sikh identity. The injection
of Canadian flavour adds to the analysis and enhances
understanding of the complex set of factors contributing to the formation of Sikh identity. It also demonstrates shared expériences of Empire between the
South and the North — a connection worthy of study
but rarely explored by scholars in both hemispheres.
A question that lurks in the shadows while reading The Construction of Religious Boundaries is: if the construction of a single Sikh religious identity in the form
of the Tat Khalsa in the late nineteenth century is
reductive and void of the rich Sikh tradition, what is a
valid représentation of identity? How does one judge a
valid from an invalid représentation? Dialogue on
identity is generally limited to the educated elite. To
what degree are démocratie principles applicable to
the formation of a common identity? These questions
are not only pertinent to the Sikhs, but to other communities who are undergoing the convulsions of selfrepresentation such as Native peoples, the French in
Canada, former African and Asian colonies, Muslim
countries and the newly independent states of Eastem
Europe. Oberoi's The Construction of Religious
Boundaries, while not answering these questions, is
informative and germane.
The world's writing Systems. Edited by Peter T.
Daniels and William Bright. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996. xlv + 920 pp. 222 $ CAN.
By Kevin Tuite,
Université de Montréal
Long confined to the margins of linguistics and
anthropology, the study of writing has drawn the
attention of a considérable number of scholars in the
past three décades. After over twenty years of solitude,
I. J. Gelb's ground-breaking 1952 monograph now has
plenty of company on the library shelves: dozens of
books offer théories on the origins of writing, its history and "évolution" (with the alphabet, of course, as its
glorious endpoint), and its impact on cognition, culture and society. The book under review [henceforth
WWS], is, however, primarily a reference work,
intended to complément, rather than supplant, most of
its thinner shelf-mates. Let me say at the outset that I
recommend WWS very highly, and consider it a musthave for any secondary-school and university library.
It is to be hoped that a more affordable paperback version will bring this valuable resource within the reach
of individual buyers.
1.
STRUCTURE
The two editors, Peter T. Daniels [PTD] and
William Bright [WB], assisted by over six dozen contributors, présent ail of the principal and most of the
minor scripts known to humankind. The individual
articles, over a hundred of them, are grouped into thirteen Parts (I. Grammatology. II. Ancient Near Eastem
Writing Systems. III. Decipherment. IV. East Asian
Writing Systems. V. European Writing Systems. VI.
South Asian Writing Systems. VII. Southeast Asian
Writing Systems. VIII. Middle Eastem Writing
Systems. IX. Scripts Invented in Modem Times X. Use
and Adaptation of Scripts. XI. Sociolinguistics and
Scripts. XII. Secondary Notation Systems. XIII.
Imprinting and Printing). PTD, a specialist on the history and typology of Near Eastem writing Systems,
contributed Parts I and XIII in their entirety, as well as
the introductions to most of the intervening parts and
a useful sketch on the methodology of decipherment.
In terms of page length WB's contribution is far less
extensive, consisting of two entries on South Asian
scripts and the introduction to Part XI. Simple division
shows that the mean length of each contribution is
slightly over nine pages, but the space is efficiently utilized. The typical entry comprises a brief account of the
history and origins of the script, the uses to which it
was put, and the nature of the writing System.
Character lists are given for nearly ail of the alphabets
and syllabaries, and tables of selected signs, sometimes
running to several dozens, for those writing Systems
employing logograms, characters which dénoté the
meaning, rather than the pronunciation, of a word.
Each entry is followed by a bibliography, usually fairly extensive and up-to-date. One especially attractive
feature of WWS is the inclusion of sample texts, accompanied by not one, but at least four, parallel représentations: the text in its original script, a translitération of
the latter, a phonetic transcription (often surprisingly
different from the translitération), a morphemic gloss,
and a free translation into English. (The hundred or so
type faces used in the book, incidentally, are of uniformly high quality, with regards to both legibility and
aesthetics. Much of the crédit, as the editors point out,
Book Reviews / 135
Document generated on 12/24/2023 1:54 p.m.
Culture
The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture, Identity,
and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages
Karim-Aly Kassam
Volume 17, Number 1-2, 1997
URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1084043ar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1084043ar
See table of contents
Publisher(s)
Canadian Anthropology Society / Société Canadienne d’Anthropologie (CASCA),
formerly/anciennement Canadian Ethnology Society / Société Canadienne
d’Ethnologie
ISSN
0229-009X (print)
2563-710X (digital)
Explore this journal
Cite this review
Kassam, K.-A. (1997). Review of [The Construction of Religious Boundaries:
Culture, Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition, by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages]. Culture, 17(1-2), 134–135.
https://doi.org/10.7202/1084043ar
Tous droits réservés © Canadian Anthropology Society / Société Canadienne
This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit
d’Anthropologie (CASCA), formerly/anciennement Canadian Ethnology Society / (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be
Société Canadienne d’Ethnologie, 1997
viewed online.
https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/
This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit.
Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal,
Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to
promote and disseminate research.
https://www.erudit.org/en/
The Skjonsberg and Vuorela chapters provide the
detail for Section V, Efforts to Record Female
Perspectives. Through diaries and story-telling women's, indeed people's, lives are portrayed. Skjonsberg
tells how participatory research is not an alternative to
existing social scientific research but a supplément.
Participatory research widens our perspective, people
informing people gives us a more accurate view of the
diversity of social life. As she says, the "silent majorities" (like women who face more powerful groups) are
given voice. Vuorela gives space for this voice in the
engaging stories told by and about women in Msoga
Village, Tanzania.
In the final Section Bryceson retums again to ask
if we should bury the hoe as we note the transformations of agriculture in African life. What is to be
acknowledged is that women wielding the hoe has not
been displaced in the 'modernising' process. It
endures, as a mainstay, perhaps as a last resort, but,
"...given the individualized nature of hoeing as a physical activity, the hoe has, over time, offered women a
means of supporting themselves and their dependents
with or without male involvement" (p.269).
This volume contributes to the small but growing
academie literature recognising African women's intelligence as well as their hard work as this is delineated
in empirical data using participatory methods that
include women's voices.
*>The Construction of Religious Boundaries: Culture,
Identity, and Diversity in the Sikh Tradition,
by Harjot OBEROI, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994, 494 pages.
By Karim-Aly Kassam
University ofCalgary
The changes of the nineteenth century ushered in
by European science and military technology were
remaking the world in fact as well as in the mind. In
fact Britain had established preeminence on the Indian
subcontinent. In mind it changed the way the colonized peoples would perceive themselves as well as
the world around them. It is in this context that Harjot
Oberoi writes about the tension between diversity of
religious practice and the représentation of a modem
homogeneous Sikh identity in India. His central argument is that categories such as Muslim, Sikh and
Hindu were simply irrelevant to the religious life of the
newly colonized peoples of the subcontinent. Religious
life of the people in the pre-colonial period, he maintains, is best characterized as a continuum of overlap-
134 / Comptes rendus
ping communal identifies. Indeed categorizations such
as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Sikhism took
place in the nineteenth century. Oberoi asserts that the
tidy category "Sikh" is a cultural construct resulting
from a mixture of factors such as the impact of modernity, British colonization, the effective use of communications technology, and the desire of certain elite
groups to purge their community of religious plurali-
tyOberoi's description of the Sikh effort in the construction of a religious identity shares résonances with
the struggles of other colonized communities worldwide to undertake reform of religious values and practices in the search for a relevant self-representation.
Subjugation créâtes a deep anxiety among the colonized eûtes caused by strong feelings of religious and
moral superiority juxtaposed against the fact of being a
conquered people. Invariably this leads to critical selfexamination through questioning of what went wrong
and movement towards reform and a new self-representation. Indeed, amongst the Sikh, the process of
self-examination and response to modernity began
among the educated elite. In this sense The Construction
of Religious Boundaries speaks to anyone who perceives
that debilitating anxiety and is interested in the
response of colonized peoples to the challenges of
modernity.
Oberoi's argument echoes David Hume's Naturel
History of Religion in which he maintains that mankind
oscillâtes between polytheism and monotheism, like a
pendulum swinging from a pluralistic, ritual-oriented,
oral tradition to a puritanical, scripturalistic, codified
religious practice. Oberoi meticulously traces the
movement of a plural Sikh framework, consisting of
heterogeneous religious beliefs and practices, to the
dominance of the Tat Khalsa "episteme" subordinating
ail other Sikh traditions. Attempts to force a people
into separate and distinct breeds invariably leads to
misrepresentations. The complicity of the British in the
construction of the identity of the "marshal race"
reveals the web of political motives necessary to produce categories such as the "Sikh".
It is noteworthy that Ernest Gellner in his Muslim
Society argues that under modem conditions Hume's
oscillating pendulum becomes unhinged and moves
overwhelmingly towards a more protestant and less
pluralistic version of religion. The mediating function
of local saints is eroded by the colonial and post-colonial state. Atomised masses identify less with saints
and more with a common national factor.
In this case the formation of a common Sikh ethnie and religious identity was facilitated by communications technology in reaching the rural masses. To his
crédit Oberoi weaves the ideas of Canadian thinkers
such as Harold Adams Innis (implicitly) and Marshall
McLuhan (explicitly) in explaining how print culture
played a rôle in the création of monopolies of knowledge and formulation of a Sikh identity. The injection
of Canadian flavour adds to the analysis and enhances
understanding of the complex set of factors contributing to the formation of Sikh identity. It also demonstrates shared expériences of Empire between the
South and the North — a connection worthy of study
but rarely explored by scholars in both hemispheres.
A question that lurks in the shadows while reading The Construction of Religious Boundaries is: if the construction of a single Sikh religious identity in the form
of the Tat Khalsa in the late nineteenth century is
reductive and void of the rich Sikh tradition, what is a
valid représentation of identity? How does one judge a
valid from an invalid représentation? Dialogue on
identity is generally limited to the educated elite. To
what degree are démocratie principles applicable to
the formation of a common identity? These questions
are not only pertinent to the Sikhs, but to other communities who are undergoing the convulsions of selfrepresentation such as Native peoples, the French in
Canada, former African and Asian colonies, Muslim
countries and the newly independent states of Eastem
Europe. Oberoi's The Construction of Religious
Boundaries, while not answering these questions, is
informative and germane.
The world's writing Systems. Edited by Peter T.
Daniels and William Bright. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1996. xlv + 920 pp. 222 $ CAN.
By Kevin Tuite,
Université de Montréal
Long confined to the margins of linguistics and
anthropology, the study of writing has drawn the
attention of a considérable number of scholars in the
past three décades. After over twenty years of solitude,
I. J. Gelb's ground-breaking 1952 monograph now has
plenty of company on the library shelves: dozens of
books offer théories on the origins of writing, its history and "évolution" (with the alphabet, of course, as its
glorious endpoint), and its impact on cognition, culture and society. The book under review [henceforth
WWS], is, however, primarily a reference work,
intended to complément, rather than supplant, most of
its thinner shelf-mates. Let me say at the outset that I
recommend WWS very highly, and consider it a musthave for any secondary-school and university library.
It is to be hoped that a more affordable paperback version will bring this valuable resource within the reach
of individual buyers.
1.
STRUCTURE
The two editors, Peter T. Daniels [PTD] and
William Bright [WB], assisted by over six dozen contributors, présent ail of the principal and most of the
minor scripts known to humankind. The individual
articles, over a hundred of them, are grouped into thirteen Parts (I. Grammatology. II. Ancient Near Eastem
Writing Systems. III. Decipherment. IV. East Asian
Writing Systems. V. European Writing Systems. VI.
South Asian Writing Systems. VII. Southeast Asian
Writing Systems. VIII. Middle Eastem Writing
Systems. IX. Scripts Invented in Modem Times X. Use
and Adaptation of Scripts. XI. Sociolinguistics and
Scripts. XII. Secondary Notation Systems. XIII.
Imprinting and Printing). PTD, a specialist on the history and typology of Near Eastem writing Systems,
contributed Parts I and XIII in their entirety, as well as
the introductions to most of the intervening parts and
a useful sketch on the methodology of decipherment.
In terms of page length WB's contribution is far less
extensive, consisting of two entries on South Asian
scripts and the introduction to Part XI. Simple division
shows that the mean length of each contribution is
slightly over nine pages, but the space is efficiently utilized. The typical entry comprises a brief account of the
history and origins of the script, the uses to which it
was put, and the nature of the writing System.
Character lists are given for nearly ail of the alphabets
and syllabaries, and tables of selected signs, sometimes
running to several dozens, for those writing Systems
employing logograms, characters which dénoté the
meaning, rather than the pronunciation, of a word.
Each entry is followed by a bibliography, usually fairly extensive and up-to-date. One especially attractive
feature of WWS is the inclusion of sample texts, accompanied by not one, but at least four, parallel représentations: the text in its original script, a translitération of
the latter, a phonetic transcription (often surprisingly
different from the translitération), a morphemic gloss,
and a free translation into English. (The hundred or so
type faces used in the book, incidentally, are of uniformly high quality, with regards to both legibility and
aesthetics. Much of the crédit, as the editors point out,
Book Reviews / 135