The Legacies of Afghanistan’s Urban Cosmopolitanism: Sikhs, Muslims and Markets in London

Abstract

This article explores the lives and activities of Afghan Sikhs living in the United Kingdom. Rather than analysing Afghan Sikhs as a one-dimensional “community” defined in relationship to a singular “identity” based on a shared geographical origin in Afghanistan, the article emphasises the ways in which they have formed multiple and dynamic networks across shifting geographical and historical contexts. Ethnographically, it focuses on the importance of commercial spaces, practices, and relations to the formation of such networks and the modes of social life within which these are entwined. The article argues that particular forms of everyday cosmopolitanism arise in the context of participation in long-distance commerce. Cosmopolitan sensibilities coexist with distinctions based on caste, language, and regional background, and are consciously regarded by some of the traders as markers of skill and social accomplishment.