TY - JOUR T1 - Authority in the Virtual Sangat : Sikhism, Ritual and Identity in the Twenty-First Century JF - Online – Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet Y1 - 2006 A1 - Jakobsh, Doris R KW - Akal Takht KW - Authority KW - Digital Religion KW - identity KW - online communication KW - Ritual KW - Sangat KW - Sikhism KW - Sociology of religion KW - third place AB - In her paper Authority in the Virtual Sangat. Sikhism, Ritual and Identity in the Twenty-First Century, Doris Jakobsh analyses the change of authority based on her research on Sikhs on the Internet. She stresses the Web as a ‘third place’ of communication among the Sikhs as well as the phenomenon of new authorities online. However, this does not imply the replacement of the traditional seats of authority, the Akal Takht, SGPC, or gurdwara managements, but one can recognize a significant shift away from these traditional sites of authority toward the ‘new authorities’, the intermediaries of cyberspace. Her analysis shows that this aspect of the Sikh experience brings with it the most profound challenges and, most importantly, a need to bridge the post-modern individual, i.e. ‘Sikh tradition’ intertwined and legitimated by the metanarrative, and the proliferation of new authorities who have become intermediaries of Sikhism online by virtue of their expertise within the digital domain. VL - 02.1 UR - http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/religions/article/view/374 IS - Special Issue on Rituals on the Internet ER -