Faculty associates

Sharn (she/her) earned her MA degree in 2008 from UBC’s Asian Studies department which looked at the 18^th 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.

Master of Arts, Department of Asian Studies at UBC (2008)

PhD, Department of History at UBC (2022)

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.

Sandhra, S. Guru Nanak’s Philosophy and Science Understanding Sikhism, The Research Journal. January-December, 2012 Vol.14, No. 1-2:

http://www.iuscanada.com/journal/archives/2012/j1412p47.pdf  

Jauhal, P. and Sandhra, S. A Soldier Remembers: Lieutenant Colonel Pritam Singh Jauhal, A Memoir. Centre for Indo Canadian Studies, University of the Fraser Valley. November 2013.

Sandhra, S., Bains, S., Koehn, S. & Addison, M. “Promoting mental health of immigrant seniors in community.” Ethnicity and Inequalities in Health and Social Care. 7(3), 146-156. 2014.

Sandhra, S., and Bains, Satwinder. Sustaining echoes of the past - building a future: 100 years of Indo-Canadian history. Abbotsford: From Village to City: Centers of Innovation and Excellence. 2015.

Sandhra, S. Book Review, The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada’s Colour Bar. BC Studies, no. 190, pgs.156-57. 2016.

Sandhra, S. Book Review, Not Fit to Stay: Public Health Panics and South Asian Exclusion. The Ormsby Review. [Forthcoming, 2017].