The Zoroastrians in British Columbia

Zoroastrians – adherents of one of the world's oldest organized faiths – have a long history of religious and cultural distinctiveness within ‎the societies they inhabit. They have settled in Canada from Iran, India, the ‎United Kingdom, East Africa, Pakistan, and elsewhere, bringing narratives of resilience, survival, and an illustrious past.‎ How have they fared in contemporary British Columbia?

The Zoroastrians in British Columbia explores the ways ‎in which ‎members of this community defined themselves ethnically and spiritually ‎before settling in the province, and how they have done so since, revealing the demands of navigating the incongruities between Parsi/Zartoshty ‎narratives of ‎exclusion and the Canadian conception of multiculturalism.

This unique study convincingly demonstrates that twenty-first-century experiences of ‎exclusion and racialization have had a ‎transformative impact on ‎traditional patterns of belief and behaviour, including religious worship, personal ‎relationships, and identity, particularly among the youth, ‎within the Zoroastrian community.