From exile to belonging: Sikh place attachment in France through the legacy of Maharajah Duleep Singh
This article explores the ways in which Sikh migrants in contemporary France develop place attachment in a context often marked by marginalization and perceived social exclusion. It focusses on theories of place-making, memory studies, and postcolonial spatial theory, and argues that migrant belongi...
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| Pubblicato in: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/miranda, |
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| Autore principale: | |
| Natura: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Lingua: | Anglais |
| Pubblicazione: |
Miranda
2026
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| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Riassunto: | This article explores the ways in which Sikh migrants in contemporary France develop place attachment in a context often marked by marginalization and perceived social exclusion. It focusses on theories of place-making, memory studies, and postcolonial spatial theory, and argues that migrant belonging is not only constructed through present-day practices but also through symbolic and historical ones, and more importantly through reclaiming places that have been forgotten. The paper brings a neglected colonial figure into this discussion: Maharajah Duleep Singh, the last sovereign ruler of Punjab, who spent his final years in exile in Paris and whose daughters from his second marriage were active in elite Parisian society. While their aristocratic status contrasts sharply with the working-class profiles of today’s Sikh communities in France, this historical presence provides a meaningful anchor for contemporary migrants in a process of claiming symbolic continuity and spatial legitimacy in modern-day France.By reframing Duleep Singh’s presence and legacy as a site of memory, this article contends that contemporary Sikh migrants can reclaim space not only through everyday practices and religious institutions but also by reactivating forgotten genealogies of belonging. Through this approach, place attachment emerges through both lived experience and historical memory. Archival sources will be drawn upon, and thus the article offers an interdisciplinary framework for understanding how migrants produce place even in conditions of exclusion. These materials suggest the need to recognise diasporic histories more fully within France’s urban cultural memory. They provide new pedagogical and commemorative strategies that bridge historical erasure of the Sikh community with contemporary strategies of belonging. |
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