The Temple is an important touchstone to our community’s past. Its preservation also represents one of the first steps in documenting the history of the Sikhs in Canada. 

-Khalsa Diwan Society, Abbotsford

EDI Scholar-in-Residence

Dr. Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra (Sharn) is the founder of Belonging Matters Consulting and a sessional faculty in the Department of History at UFV and UBC. Before this, Sharn worked as Coordinator at the South Asian Studies Institute at UFV for more than 12 years and as co-curator and co-manager of the Sikh Heritage Museum, National Historic Site and Gur Sikh Temple (gurdwara). Sharn’s Ph.D. looks at the affective experiences of museum visitors through a critical race theory lens with the dissertation titled “Museums as Spaces of Belonging: Racialized Power in the Margins.” Sharn is a passionate activist, building bridges between community and academia through museum and cultural work.

She is a past member of the BC Museums Association and past Director of the Pacific Canada Heritage Centre – Museum of Migration. Sharn has been featured most recently in the Knowledge Network series “B.C: An Untold History,” is a published author, and has been featured on local, and international podcasts and media. She has lived in Abbotsford with her husband, two boys, and mother-in-law, for more than thirty years.

Directions to the Gur Sikh Temple (33089 South Fraser Way, Abbotsford, BC)

For more information about this program, please contact Allan Cho, Community Engagement Librarian (Program Services)