Yeoh, Seng Guan * (2001) Producing locality: Space, houses and public culture in a Hindu festival in Malaysia. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 35 (1). p. 33.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Victor Turner's concepts of liminality and communitas have left an indelible mark on anthropological studies on ritual. Basically, Turner argued that there is a dialectic between the mediacy of social structure (characterised as a 'closed society' or 'status system') and the immediacy of communitas (an 'open society'). This article argues for a more fluid understanding of these kinds of social processes, drawing from Arjun Appadurai's char acterisation of a 'locality'as a 'complex phenomenological quality, constituted by a series of links between the sense of social immediacy, the technologies of interactivity and the relativity of contexts'. This is illustrated through the ethnographic description and analy sis of a local annual Hindu festival in an urban squatter settlement in Malaysia. While the mythic territoriality of the female deity primarily engenders symbolic boundary-making and life-sustaining activities, it also constitutes other layers of social spaces for organ isers and participants alike. Individual and corporate agendas overlap and criss-cross one another. Local knowledge is both parochial and constituted within the wider religious, social and political landscapes. Altogether, these kinds of activities contribute towards a 'public culture' of Hinduism in Malaysia, characterised both by differentiation and the semblance of communitas.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Hinduism; festivals |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GT Manners and customs |
| Divisions: | ?? lcs ?? |
| Depositing User: | Administrator Admin |
| Date Deposited: | 12 Oct 2012 09:16 |
| Last Modified: | 12 Oct 2012 09:17 |
| URI: | http://eprints.sunway.edu.my/id/eprint/1 |
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