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2024, Dialectical Anthropology
This piece was written as a speculative afterword to a special issue of Dialectical Anthropology, edited by Max Kramer and Jürgen Schaflechner, on the Limits of Visibility for South Asian Religious Minorities
Keynote address given to Texas Asia Conference: Moving Beyond Barriers. University of Texas at Austin, September 13, 2019
Exemplar: the Journal of South Asian Studies
Religion and Identity in the South Asian Diaspora, Eds. Rajesh Rai and Chitra Sankaran2015 •
This article addresses the issue of methods and contexts in the study of religion in South Asia. Along the lines of the "'natural history'… of religious studies" proposed in Lease 1995, it proposes a "natural history" of the study of religion in South Asia, insofar as it originates not only in a "Protestant Christian 'apologetic' theological project" (Smith 2010) but also, more specifically, in reconstructions of traditions using the "text-historical method." The case studies in MTSR 1995 provide a differential diagnosis of the pathologies responsible for the demise of five programs in religion. We focus, instead, on the disciplinary crisis in religious studies, using the work of Paul Hacker as an example. Smith's (1995) three preconditions for the formation of a discipline-"theory, general studies, and professionalism"-are the criteria we apply to comprehend the field's diremption. On a positive note, the article argues for reconsidering the role of method in religious studies. Recognizing and correcting for the shortcomings of past scholarship is a sine qua non for progressing the academic study of religion. A comprehensive topically arranged bibliography provides suggestions for further reading.
2011 •
The fact that the term Hinduism did not exist until the late eighteenth century (Oddie 2006, 71), when British imperial rule and cultural hegemony began to set many of the conditions of its evolution, reflects the significant impact that the European study of religion has had on South Asians (for various views on this, see Lipner 1994; King 1999; and Lorenzen 2006). The additional fact that Hindus played a critical role in the addition of this word—and its non-English equivalents—to their various vocabularies shows that, despite the asymmetries of power, this played out in no simple active-passive binary: South Asians practiced some agency no matter how constrained the spaces afforded to them by Western control. And, of course, Western-South Asian engagements occurred both before and after the two centuries of direct British rule. Complexities abound in this history of engagement. While Edward Said’s (1978) withering critique of European imperialist Orientalism clearly altered the c...
Social Identities
The unbearable proximity of the Orient: Political religion, multiculturalism and the retrieval of South Asian identities2004 •
This article examines the intersection of religious freedom and minority protection within the Asian context. It argues that, to the extent that a focus on minority protection draws greater attention to the collective and communitarian dimensions of religious practice, it has the potential to enrich the discourse on religious freedom protection. I identify three areas of possible convergence-first, where a minority-focused regime leads to a richer understanding of the intersections between culture, language, and religion; secondly, where a focus on minority protection leads to positive measures by the state to protect religious minorities; and thirdly, where a minority regime founds a right of religious minorities to political participation. Nonetheless, I will also point out that there are limits to minority protection. It may even be a double-edged sword as it serves to reify differences with the rest of society and permanently marginalize the group as a minority. This is even if ...
Dialectical Anthropology
Tactics for Becoming Visible: South Asian Minorities in the Times of Communicative Capitalism2024 •
We explore the tactics of becoming visible and their relationship to alleviating or exacerbating precarious forms of life for minorities in South Asia. These tactics emerge from and respond to three interdependent moments: The frames that define how minorities can become visible, the interplay between limits and thresholds of visibility, and how capture fragments articulations and makes them easy to appropriate.
journal editorship and introduction to the issue
Academic Study of Religion in South Asia (262 p.), co-eds. Marzenna Jakubczak, Asha Mukherjee & Åke SanderLoading Preview
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2012 •
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
Introduction: Reconstituting Boundaries and Connectivity: Religion and Mobility in a Globalising Asia. 2013. The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 14(1): 1-7.2013 •
Minorities and Nation Building
Being a Minority other and a surrogate victim in India2019 •
The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology
Reconstituting Boundaries and Connectivity: Religion and Mobility in a Globalising Asia2013 •
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
John R. Hinnells Religious Reconstruction in the South Asian Diasporas: From One Generation to Another, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. ISBN 978 0 333 77401 4. (Migration, Minorities and Citizenship.) ix, 335 pp2008 •
Social compass
Challenges for the Sociology of Religion in Asia, by Graeme Lang (Social Compass, 2004)2004 •
2019 •
2010 •
2020 •
Jurnal Nyanadassana: Jurnal Penelitian Pendidikan, Sosial dan Keagamaan
Being a Minority in a Moslem Neighborhood: Reflective Experience of a Buddhist Priest in Cemani VillageComparative Studies in Society and History
Anna Bigelow. 2010. Sharing the Sacred: Practicing Pluralism in Muslim North India. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-536823-9, 314 pp., $742013 •
2019 •
2014 •
Cambridge University Press
Deceptive Majority: Dalits, Hinduism, and Underground Religion (Introduction)2021 •