Bonar Buffam
Biographic Data
| ID | 640491 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Bonar Buffam |
| GIVEN NAMES | Bonar |
| FAMILY NAME | Buffam |
| SIGNATURE | BUFFAM B |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of British Columbia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6690-4956 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 8 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Racialization, Islamophobia and mistaken identity
Sacred distinctions
Since the 1990s, a sizeable body of case law has formed in the Canadian province of British Columbia in response to disputes over the political leadership of local gurdwaras, the name for Sikh places of worship and assembly. Although the disputes stemmed from religious and political disagreements, the legal issues addressed by the courts concern the proper bureaucratic administration of Sikh institutions that have been legally incorporated as non…
Racial inquiries
Critical race scholarship has effectively documented how the legal institutions of liberal democratic states figure as both mechanisms of systemic racism and avenues of redress against these forms of power. This article offers new insights into the racial effects of these legal institutions by examining the epistemic dynamics of a Canadian public inquiry that was tasked with investigating why state institutions failed to prevent and successfully …
Martyrdom, collective memory, and the contested penal authority of racial state institutions
Recent work in postcolonial and border criminologies has called for more extensive consideration of the complex temporal and geographic dimensions of penal authority. This article explicates new dimensions of the modern state’s penal authority by analyzing the execution and remembrance of Mewa Singh, a Sikh anticolonial activist convicted of killing Canadian immigration agent William C Hopkinson in Vancouver in 1914. Because Hopkinson was embedde…
Documentary practices
Since the 1990s, disputes over the political leadership of gurdwaras in British Columbia have formed the basis of a substantial body of case law, which has afforded courts different forms of authority over the affairs of these Sikh institutions. By analyzing 55 legal decisions related to gurdwara leadership, this article examines how law has transformed the political conditions of local Sikh populations by enfolding litigants in bureaucratic prac…
Political appearances
Purpose In Metro Vancouver, Vaisakhi celebrations are organized by local Sikh gurdwaras to mark the Punjabi harvest season and the anniversary of the Sikh Khalsa, which was formed in 1699. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Vaisakhi celebrations have become mechanisms for state institutions to refigure and extend their racial authority over Sikh places and populations through their coordinated appearances at these public events. Thes…
Racial accountabilities
Public inquiries command significant political capital for liberal democratic states that premise their authority on being accountable to a generalized public sphere. By attending to the particular relations of visibility that are generated by these investigative state institutions, this article reveals the differentiated forms of legal and political accountability that structure the proceedings and case history of the 2006 Special State’s Attorn…
Cultural confessions
In Metro Vancouver, the recurrence of gang violence involving young South Asian men has spawned a series of public explanations about a new threat to public safety: the ‘Indo-Canadian gangster’. This article explicates the racial force of a specific exposé on the putatively ‘cultural’ origins of the Indo-Canadian gangster which identifies the domestic realm of the city’s South Asian populations as the principal cause of this gang violence. By tra…
Neighbourly demands
Law has become a principal axis of racialization amidst the neoliberal restructuring of urban spaces. This article tracks how processes of racialization materialize through practices of civic activism related to crime and urban danger in a gentrifying neighbourhood of Chicago. Focused on a neighbourhood weblog used to share information about the security of the area, this article tracks how neighbourly practices of textual production and circulat…
Public Demands
In November 2008, Canadian immigration officers affected the deportation of paralysed refugee claimant Laibar Singh. For 15 months, Singh had evaded previous deportation orders by claiming legal sanctuary in gurdwaras across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, arousing public concerns about the laxity of law. This paper examines the public saga of Singh's deportation to illuminate how law constitutes the secular topography of the public spher…
Can't hold us back! Hip-hop and the racial motility of aboriginal bodies in urban spaces
Urban centers across Canada are partitioned by racial geographies that circumvent and circumscribe the movements of aboriginal bodies. This article examines how aboriginal youth experience and engage these racisms that organize Canadian social spaces. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken at a drop-in recreational centre in the inner city of Edmonton, Alberta, it documents the different ways in which indigenous youth employ hip-hop as a me…
Neighbourly demands
Law has become a principal axis of racialization amidst the neoliberal restructuring of urban spaces. This article tracks how processes of racialization materialize through practices of civic activism related to crime and urban danger in a gentrifying neighbourhood of Chicago. Focused on a neighbourhood weblog used to share information about the security of the area, this article tracks how neighbourly practices of textual production and circulat…
Can't hold us back! Hip-hop and the racial motility of aboriginal bodies in urban spaces
Urban centers across Canada are partitioned by racial geographies that circumvent and circumscribe the movements of aboriginal bodies. This article examines how aboriginal youth experience and engage these racisms that organize Canadian social spaces. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken at a drop-in recreational centre in the inner city of Edmonton, Alberta, it documents the different ways in which indigenous youth employ hip-hop as a me…
Documentary practices
Since the 1990s, disputes over the political leadership of gurdwaras in British Columbia have formed the basis of a substantial body of case law, which has afforded courts different forms of authority over the affairs of these Sikh institutions. By analyzing 55 legal decisions related to gurdwara leadership, this article examines how law has transformed the political conditions of local Sikh populations by enfolding litigants in bureaucratic prac…
Political appearances
Purpose In Metro Vancouver, Vaisakhi celebrations are organized by local Sikh gurdwaras to mark the Punjabi harvest season and the anniversary of the Sikh Khalsa, which was formed in 1699. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Vaisakhi celebrations have become mechanisms for state institutions to refigure and extend their racial authority over Sikh places and populations through their coordinated appearances at these public events. Thes…
Cultural confessions
In Metro Vancouver, the recurrence of gang violence involving young South Asian men has spawned a series of public explanations about a new threat to public safety: the ‘Indo-Canadian gangster’. This article explicates the racial force of a specific exposé on the putatively ‘cultural’ origins of the Indo-Canadian gangster which identifies the domestic realm of the city’s South Asian populations as the principal cause of this gang violence. By tra…
Public Demands
In November 2008, Canadian immigration officers affected the deportation of paralysed refugee claimant Laibar Singh. For 15 months, Singh had evaded previous deportation orders by claiming legal sanctuary in gurdwaras across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, arousing public concerns about the laxity of law. This paper examines the public saga of Singh's deportation to illuminate how law constitutes the secular topography of the public spher…
Can't hold us back! Hip-hop and the racial motility of aboriginal bodies in urban spaces
Urban centers across Canada are partitioned by racial geographies that circumvent and circumscribe the movements of aboriginal bodies. This article examines how aboriginal youth experience and engage these racisms that organize Canadian social spaces. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork undertaken at a drop-in recreational centre in the inner city of Edmonton, Alberta, it documents the different ways in which indigenous youth employ hip-hop as a me…
Public Demands
In November 2008, Canadian immigration officers affected the deportation of paralysed refugee claimant Laibar Singh. For 15 months, Singh had evaded previous deportation orders by claiming legal sanctuary in gurdwaras across the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, arousing public concerns about the laxity of law. This paper examines the public saga of Singh's deportation to illuminate how law constitutes the secular topography of the public spher…
Neighbourly demands
Law has become a principal axis of racialization amidst the neoliberal restructuring of urban spaces. This article tracks how processes of racialization materialize through practices of civic activism related to crime and urban danger in a gentrifying neighbourhood of Chicago. Focused on a neighbourhood weblog used to share information about the security of the area, this article tracks how neighbourly practices of textual production and circulat…
Cultural confessions
In Metro Vancouver, the recurrence of gang violence involving young South Asian men has spawned a series of public explanations about a new threat to public safety: the ‘Indo-Canadian gangster’. This article explicates the racial force of a specific exposé on the putatively ‘cultural’ origins of the Indo-Canadian gangster which identifies the domestic realm of the city’s South Asian populations as the principal cause of this gang violence. By tra…
Racial accountabilities
Public inquiries command significant political capital for liberal democratic states that premise their authority on being accountable to a generalized public sphere. By attending to the particular relations of visibility that are generated by these investigative state institutions, this article reveals the differentiated forms of legal and political accountability that structure the proceedings and case history of the 2006 Special State’s Attorn…
Documentary practices
Since the 1990s, disputes over the political leadership of gurdwaras in British Columbia have formed the basis of a substantial body of case law, which has afforded courts different forms of authority over the affairs of these Sikh institutions. By analyzing 55 legal decisions related to gurdwara leadership, this article examines how law has transformed the political conditions of local Sikh populations by enfolding litigants in bureaucratic prac…
Political appearances
Purpose In Metro Vancouver, Vaisakhi celebrations are organized by local Sikh gurdwaras to mark the Punjabi harvest season and the anniversary of the Sikh Khalsa, which was formed in 1699. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how Vaisakhi celebrations have become mechanisms for state institutions to refigure and extend their racial authority over Sikh places and populations through their coordinated appearances at these public events. Thes…
Racial inquiries
Critical race scholarship has effectively documented how the legal institutions of liberal democratic states figure as both mechanisms of systemic racism and avenues of redress against these forms of power. This article offers new insights into the racial effects of these legal institutions by examining the epistemic dynamics of a Canadian public inquiry that was tasked with investigating why state institutions failed to prevent and successfully …
Martyrdom, collective memory, and the contested penal authority of racial state institutions
Recent work in postcolonial and border criminologies has called for more extensive consideration of the complex temporal and geographic dimensions of penal authority. This article explicates new dimensions of the modern state’s penal authority by analyzing the execution and remembrance of Mewa Singh, a Sikh anticolonial activist convicted of killing Canadian immigration agent William C Hopkinson in Vancouver in 1914. Because Hopkinson was embedde…
Sacred distinctions
Since the 1990s, a sizeable body of case law has formed in the Canadian province of British Columbia in response to disputes over the political leadership of local gurdwaras, the name for Sikh places of worship and assembly. Although the disputes stemmed from religious and political disagreements, the legal issues addressed by the courts concern the proper bureaucratic administration of Sikh institutions that have been legally incorporated as non…
Racialization, Islamophobia and mistaken identity
Sociology (11 works) · Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Criminology (5 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (4 works) · Race, History, and American Society (4 works)