Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey
10. Why Do We Still Wear the Shoe That Bites?
Fabricating Difference - Steven W Ramey
Deeksha Sivakumar [+]
Emory University
Deeksha Sivakumar is a PhD candidate in Religion from Emory University. Her dissertation uses a combination of ethnography and historical textual studies to analyze a South Indian festival of displaying dolls in homes and public spaces. Her broader interests include research methodologies, healing practices, women and religion, caste, and rituals concerning material mediation.
Description
In the study of religions, various categories are offered to non-western traditions like Hinduism in order to equalize their place at the multicultural table. While Hughes argues that scholars must refrain from adjudicating good and bad religions, Sivakumar argues that religionists are already embroiled in this process, recognizing the colonial motivations through which differences were fabricated. Furthermore, practitioners also utilize these scholarly categories to further their own image of a palatable religion, still leaving a space for validating supernatural claims and noting marginalized expressions that do not fit into general understandings of Hinduism.