By exploring ways Hindus in contemporary diasporic contexts continue to recast public, domestic, and digital spaces in the twenty-first century, this session proposes fames of anlaysis that reinforce the need toe extend scholarly discourse surrounding Hindu diasporic space beyond dyadic conceptions of “homeland” and “new or host lands.” Processes of recasting Hindu diasporic space, these papers demonstrate, engage broader issues of Hindu identity, the role of innovation in diasporic ritual performance, the nature of trans-generational networks both within and beyond ethnically bounded communities, and the agency of both human and divine actors. Perhaps most significantly, the session’s emphasis on digital diasporas, inter and intra-ethnic Hindu diasporas, and intersections of public and domestic Hindu space suggest a variety of new trajectories that the study of Hindu diasporas might fruitfully engage.
In recent years, the implied valences of terms like “diaspora,” “globalism,” and “transnationalism” have been innovatively collated and explored. While the omnipresence of academic discourse may indicate universal acceptance, new critique has swiftly followed. In particular, the dyadic resonance of home and hostland has come into question. My presentation intervenes in this ongoing conversation by surveying Ganesha devotion at three temples in New York City: (1) The Sri Mahavallabha Ganapati Devasthanam in Flushing; (2) The Wat Phutthai Thavorn Wanaram in Elmhurst; and (3) The Broome Street Ganesh Temple in Lower Manhattan. Following sociologist Tahseen Shams's language on placemaking in diasporic contexts, I argue that the styles of Hindu worship that one observes at these spaces are influenced by social networks stemming from ‘here,’ (their immediate context in Gotham), ‘there,’ (India, the supposed homeland of Ganesha) and ‘elsewhere’ (other non-Indian communities of Ganesha devotees sited in the USA, Malaysia, and Thailand).
The Parashakthi Goddess Temple in Pontiac, Michigan, was established in 1999 on Vijaya Daśamī, a day celebrating the Goddess’s victory over demonic forces. In 2018, a fire destroyed most of the temple. It was reconsecrated in an entirely different form in 2022. Some temple leaders and devotees described the fire as divinely ordained, asserting that the Goddess wanted the temple to be destroyed so that a more powerful one could be built to handle stronger demonic forces. Before the 2018 fire, I heard devotees describe the temple as an “energy vortex” or a—or, as one Indian visitor described it to me, a “lively” place “where śakti dances.” How did the fire change perceptions of temple space? How does a diaspora temple become a “more powerful” vector of śakti? What role did humans, the Goddess, and other “supersensual” beings allegedly play in the destruction and regeneration of temple space?
Festivals are important events for diasporic communities to live, stage and negotiate identity, heritage and culture – beyond borders. Durgāpūjā is a perfect example for this, as it has extensively traveled with Indian communities, beyond many geographical and cultural borders. Today, the festival is characterized by elaborate public celebrations and pronounced community aspects in many places worldwide that are home to Indian migrant communities. The festival was added to UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list in 2021. This paper asks how Durgāpūjā visitors’ networking practices in the exemplary diasporic context of Finland look like, how social media are employed in this, and how this relates to trans-generational religious and cultural education. How do networking practices contribute to share, construct, interpret and (re-)define the visitors individual and community identities, which topics dominate their social media communication, which are main formats of sharing, and how and why is this used for trans-generational educational purposes?
This paper draws from ethnographic fieldwork to examine the efforts made by Hindu families in the domestic sphere to foster and maintain generational relationships with Indian culture, language, tradition, and religiosity. Hindu forms of religiosity are not confined to the mandir space, but rather move with the individual and take place within the home more than at the mandir. This is consistent with typical Hindu practice in India, where a greater emphasis is placed on religious praxis in the home. I engage with the theories of space and place, and the diaspora to examine how these practices contribute to an understanding of the self as a Hindu living in the United States with a hyphenated identity. I argue that even with the possible engagement with public mandirs, the domestic sphere is an essential component of Hindu praxis in the diaspora.