Keywords
Diasporic communities
Digital representations
Canadian Sikh Ministers
How to Cite
Abstract
Focusing on Harjit Singh Sajjan and Navdeep Singh Bains of the Trudeau Administration, this project analyzes the effects of popular digital representations of Canadian Sikh Ministers, in daily news, on race relations in Canada, as quantified by representations of hate crimes. These representations are analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively; this study looks to how many representations in major media there are as well as what the specifics of certain representations do. This research draws on scholarly journals and theoretical articles for analysis; it uses them to determine the significance of specific representations and representations generally. It also examines primary sources, such as images from newspaper articles from the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and Metro News about Minster Harjit Singh Sajjan and Minister Navdeep Singh Bains to discuss the importance of positive representations of Sikhs and explore how positive stereotypes are employed. The study finds that positive digital representations of diasporic communities in politics are key to evoking social change and affecting social life. Moreover, this study undermines the notion that political participation alone is sufficient to cause social change, as digital representation of participation is integral.References
Brack, Bruce La. "The Sikh Diaspora: The Search for Statehood." Pacific Affairs 73.4 (2001): 619-20. ProQuest. Web.
explorASIAN. "Sikh Canadian History." Vancouver Asian Heritage Month Society. WordPress, 14 Mar. 2013. Web.
Gupta, Arpana, Dawn M. Szymanski, and Frederick T. L. Leong. "The “model Minority Myth”: Internalized Racialism of Positive Stereotypes as Correlates of Psychological Distress, and Attitudes Toward Help-Seeking." Asian American Journal of Psychology 2.2 (2011): 101-14. ProQuest. Web.
Gupta, Bhabani Sen. "Punjab: Fading of Sikh Diaspora." Economic and Political Weekly 25.7/8 (1990): 364-66. Web.
Izard, Carroll E., Jerome Kagan, and Robert B. Zajonc. Emotions, Cognition, and Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1984. Print.
Keenan, Edward, Michael Geist, Judith Timson, Tim Harper, Ellen Roseman,Heather Mallic, Catherine Porter, Ellie, and Martin Rehg Cohn."Thestar.com | Toronto Star | Canada's Largest Daily." Thestar.com. Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd, n.d. Web.
Lambert, Alan J., et al. "Mood and the Correction of Positive Versus Negative Stereotypes." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition 72.5 (1997): 1002-16. ProQuest. Web.
Lipsitz, George. "The Black Spatial Imaginary." How Racism Takes Place. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 2011. 27-34. Print.
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “The Right to Look.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 37, no. 3, 2011, pp. 473–496. JSTOR. Web.
Murphy, Anne. "SIKHS AT LARGE: Religion, Culture, and Politics in Global Perspective." Pacific Affairs 83.1 (2010): 189-91. ProQuest. Web.
Murphy, Jessica. "Trudeau Gives Canada First Cabinet with Equal Number of Men and Women." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 04 Nov. 2015. Web.
Nesbitt, Eleanor M. Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
Ngabo, Gilbert, Rosemary Westwood, Irene Kuan, Luke Simcoe, Matt Elliot, Jessica Smith Cross, Stephen Goetz, May Warren, and Kristen Thompson. "Metro News."Metronews.ca. Free Daily News Group Inc, n.d. Web.
"ONLINE STAFF." Globeandmail.com. GlobeLink.ca, n.d. Web.
Pal Sian, Katy. "Don't Freak I'm Sikh." Thinking through Islamophobia: Global Perspectives. By AbdoolKarim Vakil. New York: Columbia UP, 2010. 251- 54. Print.
Rubec, James. "Canada's Top 20 Daily Newspapers." Cision. Cision Canada Inc, 14 Jan. 2016. Web.
Shih, Margaret, and Todd L. Pittinsky. "Reflections on Positive Stereotypes Research and on Replications." Social psychology 45.4
(2014): 335-7. ProQuest. Web.
Singh, Arjan Kirpal. "The Universal Ideal of Sikhism." Global Dialogue 2.1 (2000): 99-108. ProQuest. Web.
Tatla, Darshan Singh. The Sikh Diaspora: The Search For Statehood. UCL, 1999. ProQuest. Web.
"The Honourable Harjit Singh Sajjan." Prime Minister of Canada. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web.
"The Honourable Navdeep Singh Bains." Prime Minister of Canada. N.p., 24 Oct. 2016. Web.
"The Team." Prime Minister of Canada. Canada, n.d. Web.
"Top 10 Canadian Print Outlets." MediaMiser Top 10 Canadian Print Outlets Comments. MediaMiser, 05 Jan. 2016. Web.
Wane, Njoki Nathani, et al. "Anti-Asian Violence in North America: Asian American and Asian Canadian Reflections on Hate, Healing and Resistance." Canadian Ethnic Studies 35.1 (2003): 202-3. ProQuest. Web.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sohela Suri