Sara Cosemans received the award for her research "Sikhs in Haspengouw: Migration and integration from a female perspective"
She is a student of history who did her master thesis about the Sikh community in Hesbaye. It earned her the first prize at the Gülen Chair for Intercultural Studies (GCIS)& reaches out for the best master's thesis about multiculturalism,immigration and minorities at the KU Leuven,Belgium.
Sara said "When I heard about a thesis topic was about Sikhs,I was immediately approached - I was studying history after an exchange year in Guatemala and was sensitive to the backgrounds of migration. In Sint truiden-, where I live, you have the biggest and most traditional Sikh community in Belgium, but we really know very little about them. It is also very difficult to establish contacts. Luckily I have a friend whose parents Sikhs employing and housing, and she gave me in contact with people.In Haspengouw you have a group of some 1,500 registered Sikhs - from three waves of migration - and you can talk the successful integration without assimilation. Sikhs look obviously very distinctive and recognizable, but generally speak Dutch well and almost all have a home and even your own fruit farm. A number of young people studying at university successfully. I've mainly worked on the basis of interviews and also I have a lot of information collected online through Facebook by joining a number of groups. The title of my thesis refers not only to the fact that I primarily studied the position of women , but also on the fact that I did as a female researcher.It would be much harder for a man to penetrate the female part of the community. I mainly talked with women but also men, in order to determine how both groups influence each other's identity. "
"I am very honored to receive the prize and especially pleased with the publication by Acco .With the prize money - $ 1,500 ; I would like to study abroad and it will certainly come in handy. And hopefully I can continue with a PhD study ... "
Photo 1: Young girl wearing a chunni(a scarf)
Photo 2: Photo taken during a protest by the Sikhs in Louvain against the visit of Minister Kamal Nath.
Photo 3: Photo taken during the life of St.Truiden(2011) an initiative of the Cancer Foundation.
Dr.Gurdeep Kaur
University of Milan
Milan,Italy
Associate Professor
SGND Khalsa College
University of Delhi
Delhi,India
its the best sikh blog I've ever come across...
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