Sharn (she/her) earned her MA degree in 2008 from UBC’s Asian Studies department which looked at the 18th century court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Her PhD, completed in April 2022, from UBC’s Department of History looks at museums as spaces of belonging through a critical race theory lens. Sharn is the first Sikh person to graduate from UBC History’s PhD program. She is the former coordinator of the South Asian Studies Institute at UFV, having worked there for more than 12 years, and through that, co-managed and co-curated award-winning exhibits at the National Historic Site, Gur Sikh Temple and Sikh Heritage Museum. She continues to teach sessional in the Department of History at UFV.
Sharn is a passionate activist, having appeared on local and national television, radio, and national and international panels/podcasts. She is co-author of Challenging Racist BC: 150 Years and Counting, and has contributed most recently to A Social History of South Asians in British Columbia. She is proud to be raising two anti-racist and social justice driven boys and lives in the Fraser Valley (Stó:lō territories) in British Columbia with her boys, husband, and mother-in-law.
Sikh migration experience in BC
South Asian Diaspora(s)
Museology
Decolonization
History of emotions
Affect
Social justice/anti racist/advocacy work
Sandhra, S. Canadian Sikh Heritage Pioneer Interviews. Online website: www.canadiansikhheritage.ca. 2007-ongoing.