This book explores the material religion of contemporary Shimla, a vibrant postcolonial city, famed for its colonial heritage, set against the backdrop of the North-Western Himalayas. Jonathan Miles-Watson demonstrates that this landscape is able to peacefully reconcile the apparent tensions of faith, heritage and identity in a way that unseats traditional theories of religion, politics and heritage. It presents a mystery that is written in space through time; the key to unlocking this mystery lies in clear view, at the city’s heart, in the contemporary material religion that surrounds nominally Christian sacred sites. Although the material religion centres on landscapes that are identifiable as Christian, the book demonstrates that Hindus, atheists and Sikhs all have a role to play in the mutually constitutive relations that lie at the centre of these knots of sacred entanglement.This book builds upon over a decade of research to present an ethnographic account of devotional practices that speaks to contemporary developments in both the anthropology of Christianity and material religion. Through this exploration the book answers the mystery of Shimla’s postcolonial harmony, while complicating established theories in the anthropology of religion, postcolonial studies, mythography, heritage studies and material culture.
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Preface1. Sita's Red Dress: Introduction2. Christ in the Land of Gods: Context3. Worshiping with Ghosts: The Cathedral on the Ridge4. Materiality, Heterodoxy and Skill: The Hidden Cathedral 5. Pipe Organs and Satsang: Inculturation, Enskilment and Conflict6. Entanglements at Jakhoo: Materiality Beyond Pluralism7. Cyberspace and the Formation of Shimla's Sacred Places8. The Salt in the Stew: ConclusionNotesReferencesIndex
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A wonderfully engaging, restless book. As he reflects on Christianity, landscape and belonging in postcolonial Shimla, Jonathan Miles-Watson constantly provokes the reader into reassessing what they think they know about the Himalayas, Christianity and anthropology. This is an important contribution to the study of material religion.
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A unique ethnographic account of material religion in the Himalayan city of Shimla.
The first ethnography of Christians in this Himalayan area, contributing significantly to South Asian studies
Advisory Editors: Birgit Meyer (Utrecht University, The Netherlands), David Morgan (Duke University, USA), S. Brent Plate (Hamilton College, USA), Crispin Paine (University College London, UK), Katja Rakow (Utrecht University, The Netherlands).Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion is the first book series dedicated exclusively to studies in material religion. Within the field of lived religion, the series is concerned with the material things with which people do religion, and how these things – objects, buildings, landscapes – relate to people, their bodies, clothes, food, actions, thoughts and emotions. The series engages and advances theories in ‘sensuous’ and ‘experiential’ religion, as well as informing museum practices and influencing wider cultural understandings with relation to religious objects and performances. Books in the series are at the cutting edge of debates as well as developments in fields including religious studies, anthropology, museum studies, art history, and material culture studies.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781350185296
Publisert
2022-04-21
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
224

Om bidragsyterne

Jonathan Miles-Watson is Associate Professor of the Anthropology of Religion at Durham University, UK. He has carried out extensive fieldwork in both North India and the UK. He is co-editor of The Bloomsbury Reader in the Study of Myth (Bloomsbury, 2019).