Rethinking their mission statement in 2013, Timothy Mitchell and Anupama Rao, the editors of Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, note that the ways in which theories and methods of the humanities and social sciences ‘relate to regions, and how regions generate theories and methods of their own, are issues of great interest, even urgency, to the contemporary academy’ (135). Such great interest and urgency pertain, moreover, to practices of ‘comparative or connective scholarship, especially where comparison or connection is itself a subject for theorization’ (135). Notably, while the term diaspora appears neither in CSSAAME’s mission statement nor in its accompanying background statement, it certainly both resonates with and complicates the question of how disciplines ‘relate to regions, and how regions generate theories and methods of their own’; for, the ascendance of multidisciplinary diaspora studies is indicative of an important shift from the boundedness of traditional area studies to the relative openness of ‘transregions, where hitherto unknown forms of economic interaction, religious faith, literary culture, and the like are being discovered’ (135). Diasporas, of course, solicit from us a sustained, and always situated, labor of thinking transnationally and thus transregionally. Yet, precisely how do forms of transregion specific to the historical production of diasporas, including global chains of migration and encounters with various regimes of citizenship, generate theories and methods of their own? How exactly does the study of diaspora factor into and inform major themes or concepts that preoccupy the humanities and social sciences writ large today? What does diaspora entail now from our disciplinary ways of thinking? Such questions are the impetus for this feature section, which takes the form of a theory colloquium on Michael Nijhawan’s The Precarious Diasporas of Sikh and Ahmadiyya Generations: Violence, Memory, Agency (2016). Exemplifying what Mitchell and Rao describe as ‘comparative or connective scholarship’ whereby ‘comparison or connection is itself a subject for theorization’ (2013, 135), Nijhawan’s Precarious Diasporas contributes to social anthropologies of transnationalism, diasporic position and identity, violence, juridical reasoning and asylum law, citizenship, and religion via its juxtaposition and crosshatching of research into Sikh and Ahmadiyya diasporas since 1984. Socially and politically, 1984 is a pivotal anniversary for both international communities. For Sikhs, it is the year of the military assault on Darbar Sahib, the assassination of Indira Gandhi, and systematic government-sanctioned pogroms against India’s Sikhs. For Ahmadis, it is the year of a presidential ordinance that, after decades of anti-minority violence and constitutional amendments reclassifying Ahmadis as non-Muslims, ‘made it de facto illegal for Ahmadis to claim official status as a religious organization and practice

中文翻译：

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与迈克尔·尼哈万（Michael Nijhawan）的不稳定移民

南亚，非洲和中东比较研究的编辑蒂莫西·米切尔（Timothy Mitchell）和安纳帕玛·饶（Anupama Rao）在2013年对使命宣言进行了重新思考时指出，人文和社会科学的理论和方法与地区之间的联系方式以及如何地区产生自己的理论和方法，是当代学术界非常关注甚至紧迫的问题”（135）。而且，这种巨大的兴趣和紧迫性与“比较性或联结性奖学金”的实践有关，特别是在比较或联系性本身就是理论化的主题的情况下（135）。值得注意的是，虽然“散居”一词既未出现在CSSAAME的使命声明中，也未出现在其随附的背景声明中，但它无疑引起了学科如何与地区相关的共鸣并使之复杂化，以及地区如何产生自己的理论和方法”；因为，多学科散居国外研究的兴起表明从传统地区研究的局限性向“跨地区的相对开放”的重要转变表明，“跨地区正在发现迄今未知的经济互动，宗教信仰，文学文化等形式” （135）。当然，流离失所者向我们征求了持续的，总是处在境外的思想，这些思想是跨国性的，因而也是跨区域性的。然而，正是针对侨民的历史生产所特有的跨区域形式，包括全球移民链以及与各种公民制度的遭遇，产生自己的理论和方法？对散居侨民的研究如何准确地将当今占据重要地位的人文科学和社会科学的主要主题或概念融为一体并为其提供参考？从我们的学科思维方式来看，散居海外现在意味着什么？这些问题是本专题部分的推动力，该部分采取了关于迈克尔·尼哈万（Michael Nijhawan）的《锡克教与艾哈迈迪亚世代的不稳定流放：暴力，记忆，代理》（2016）的理论讨论会的形式。Nijhawan的飘摇欲仙的流浪汉举例说明了Mitchell和Rao所说的“比较性或联系性奖学金”，其中“比较或联系本身就是理论化的主题”（2013年，第135页），为跨国人类社会学，流离失所的地位和身份，暴力，司法推理做出了贡献和庇护法，公民身份，自1984年以来对锡克教徒和Ahmadiyya侨民的研究的并置和交叉影线对宗教和宗教的影响。1984年在社会和政治上对两个国际社会都是至关重要的周年纪念日。对于锡克教徒来说，这是对达巴尔·萨希布（Darbar Sahib）进行军事进攻，英迪拉·甘地（Indira Gandhi）被暗杀以及政府批准的针对印度锡克教徒的有组织的大屠杀的一年。对于艾哈迈迪斯来说，是总统令的一年，经过数十年的反少数族裔暴力和宪法修正案，艾哈迈迪斯重新归类为非穆斯林，“使艾哈迈迪斯宣称拥有宗教组织和习俗的正式地位实际上是非法的 今年是对达巴·萨希布（Darbar Sahib）发动军事袭击，英迪拉·甘地（Indira Gandhi）被暗杀以及政府批准的针对印度锡克教徒的有组织的大屠杀的一年。对于艾哈迈迪斯来说，是总统令的一年，经过数十年的反少数族裔暴力和宪法修正案，艾哈迈迪斯重新归类为非穆斯林，“使艾哈迈迪斯宣称拥有宗教组织和习俗的正式地位实际上是非法的 今年是对达巴·萨希布（Darbar Sahib）发动军事袭击，英迪拉·甘地（Indira Gandhi）被暗杀以及政府批准的针对印度锡克教徒的有组织的大屠杀的一年。对于艾哈迈迪斯来说，是总统令的一年，经过数十年的反少数族裔暴力和宪法修正案，艾哈迈迪斯重新归类为非穆斯林，“使艾哈迈迪斯宣称拥有宗教组织和习俗的正式地位实际上是非法的