Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India
Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Throu...
Published in: | South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |
---|---|
Main Author: | |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Association pour la recherche sur l'Asie du Sud (ARAS)
2018
|
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4554 |
id |
ftopenedition:oai:revues.org:samaj/4554 |
---|---|
record_format |
openpolar |
spelling |
ftopenedition:oai:revues.org:samaj/4554 2023-05-15T18:12:13+02:00 Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India Kent, Eliza F. 2018-07-23 http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4554 en eng Association pour la recherche sur l'Asie du Sud (ARAS) South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal urn:doi:10.4000/samaj.4554 http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4554 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess roadside shrines wayside shrines nāgas amman goddesses urban religion public space info:eu-repo/semantics/article article 2018 ftopenedition https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.4554 2018-07-29T00:12:04Z Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Through a comparison of two roadside shrines, one that was successful at attracting a group of followers and one that was not, the paper analyzes the rhetorical and ritual means that the human representatives of a deity employ to transform ordinary, homogenous public space into sacred space, where a deity may take Her seat and be honored. Such a transformation of the way that space is experienced and understood can have a catalytic effect on the people who move through it, creating new publics who exist in tension with an increasingly influential vision of public space as hygienic, orderly and free from religion. Article in Journal/Newspaper sami OpenEdition South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 18 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
OpenEdition |
op_collection_id |
ftopenedition |
language |
English |
topic |
roadside shrines wayside shrines nāgas amman goddesses urban religion public space |
spellingShingle |
roadside shrines wayside shrines nāgas amman goddesses urban religion public space Kent, Eliza F. Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
topic_facet |
roadside shrines wayside shrines nāgas amman goddesses urban religion public space |
description |
Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Through a comparison of two roadside shrines, one that was successful at attracting a group of followers and one that was not, the paper analyzes the rhetorical and ritual means that the human representatives of a deity employ to transform ordinary, homogenous public space into sacred space, where a deity may take Her seat and be honored. Such a transformation of the way that space is experienced and understood can have a catalytic effect on the people who move through it, creating new publics who exist in tension with an increasingly influential vision of public space as hygienic, orderly and free from religion. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Kent, Eliza F. |
author_facet |
Kent, Eliza F. |
author_sort |
Kent, Eliza F. |
title |
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
title_short |
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
title_full |
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
title_fullStr |
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
title_full_unstemmed |
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India |
title_sort |
bus-stop sami: transient temples in urban south india |
publisher |
Association pour la recherche sur l'Asie du Sud (ARAS) |
publishDate |
2018 |
url |
http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4554 |
genre |
sami |
genre_facet |
sami |
op_relation |
urn:doi:10.4000/samaj.4554 http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/4554 |
op_rights |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.4000/samaj.4554 |
container_title |
South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal |
container_issue |
18 |
_version_ |
1766184770589425664 |