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THIRD SPACE: AN INTERCULTURAL NEGOTIATION OF SOUTH ÁSIAN DIASPORA IN CANADA SOUTH ASIAN DIASPORIC COMMUNITIES IN CANADA As of 2016, 1,963,330 Canadians have South Asian geographical origins, constituting 5.6% of the Canadian population.® Additionally, a large influx of South Asian immigrants is joining the growing number of temporary resident categories (holding valid study and work permits) and is bolstering the economic, social, cultural and political standing of the diaspora. The term “South Asia” is commonly used in North American media, politics and academia to refer to ethnic groups of people with originations from the nation-states of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan and Sri-Lanka.° But this term often overlooks the multidimensionality of the identities of its diasporas across the globe — oversimplifying the national, cultural and linguistic belongings of its members to one dominated by discourses of the Indian diaspora. Such domination often leads to homogenization of diverse identities prevalent within the pan South Asian diaspora. Nation-states in South Asia share borders, culture, traditions, sensibilities owing to regional politics, colonial history and physical similarities, and a postcolonial imagination of “national spaces” and “homeland”’ that have roots in century-old cultural encounters which constitutes a pan-ethnic diasporic identity. Most of the South Asian diaspora in Canada follow religions such as Sikhism, Hinduism and Islam. They speak different South Asian languages — but Hindi, Punjabi and English are observed to be the most common ones. This diaspora, especially the Indian one, has provincial identities that go beyond their national ones, e.g. Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayali, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu, and these provincial identities are based on different languages and cultural practices particular to their regions. Indian identity and knowledge of Hindi and English often blur these differences. The Pakistani diaspora, which primarily speaks Urdu, is easily able to communicate with Hindi/Punjabi speakers due to vocational similarity in languages. The Bangladeshi and the Sri-Lankan diasporas have their own unique cultural identities, but their postcolonial identities inextricably link them with a larger South Asian one. The Canadian Sikh community is one of the biggest sub-diasporas within the larger Indian and even broader South Asian one — they can be traced back as the first South Asian migrants to come to Canada — as early as 1897.8 Often South Asian minority narrative in Canada is spearheaded by this 5 National Household Survey, Statistics Canada, 2011. ° Anouck Carsignol, The Construction, Mobilization and Limits of South Asianism in North America, South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, Vol. 10 (2014), https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3766 (accessed 2 March 2020). Monisha Gupta et al., Rethinking South Asian Diaspora Studies, Cultural Dynamics, Vol. 19, No. 2-3, 125-140, 2007. Arrivals and Departures, The Colonies and India, 5 June 1897, https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/35686721/ (accessed 10 March 2020). * 143 +
