“Anthropology, Politics, and Place in Sri Lanka: South Asian Reflections from an Island Adrift” by Jonathan Spencer

Abstract

How does the idea of ‘South Asia’ play out in the politics and public culture of Sri Lanka? As an island, long connected by the trade routes of the Indian Ocean, it has always been a place of comings and goings. Yet, paradoxically, this fact seems to often generate efforts to imagine it as necessarily bounded and unattached to the adjacent subcontinent. The problems of place-making that follow from this move, it is suggested, may be a source of Sri Lanka’s success as a producer of extraordinary anthropologists—anthropologists like the late Stanley Tambiah, whose research in Thailand was self-consciously conceived as a way of understanding the peculiar dilemmas of his homeland.

via: http://samaj.revues.org/3812


“Crossover Politics, Political Class and the Craving for Positions (tanaturu)” by Dr. Siri Gamage

“At present there is much drama regarding the cross overs from the ruling coalition to the opposition and vice versa on the political stage. On one hand these cross overs have generated much interest in the political campaign in general and anticipation about who would cross next kind of mentality on the other. Little we realise that these cross overs are happening within the same ‘political class’ which has been formed primarily during the post independence politics in the country-though some players have lineage to historical political figures who were active in politics during the pre 1948 period. One aspect of these cross overs relates to the concepts of positions (tanaturu) and privileges (vara prasada). These have to be examined in the country’s historical and sociological context for a better understanding.”

via: http://groundviews.org/2014/12/27/crossover-politics-political-class-and-the-craving-for-positions-tanaturu/

Conférence: “Hinduism Abroad : Contacts, Politics, Transnationalism”, 10 juin, au CEIAS à Paris

Le Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (UMR 8564 CNRS-EHESS) a le plaisir de vous convier à la deuxième séance de l’atelier de recherche « Les Hindous, les Autres et l’’Ailleurs: Asie du Sud et Diaspora » qui aura lieu le mardi 10 juin, de 9h30 à 16h, en salle 638.

hindouism abroad.indd

Il s’agit d’une conférence internationale portant sur le thème “Hinduism Abroad : Contacts, Politics, Transnationalism” dont vous trouverez le programme ci-dessous.

Argumentaire:
Hinduism can be considered a historical point of contact between various religious traditions. Countless situations of contacts with other religious groups have left their marks on Hinduism, contradicting its ethnic dimension many scholars have focused on.
Such relevance of contact in the history of Hinduism is well known in South Asia but must also be analyzed in diasporic contexts.
The aim of this conference is precisely to initiate a discussion on how Hinduism and Hindus interact with other groups and religions they encounter overseas. How does Hinduism redefine itself abroad, far from its holy land and among non-Hindus? What kinds of links have been established between Indian and diasporic Hinduisms? What about the territories they connect? Are the situations of contact observed overseas comparable to the ones that have occured in India in past and present times? Do these contacts lead to cosmopolitism or do they feed ethnicity? What are the consequences of these contacts on the nature of contemporary Hinduism in terms of religious practices and representations, and in terms of politics?
Such are some of the issues that will be addressed during this workshop, drawing on several case studies located in Western contexts and resulting from migrations that occurred during the last century.


Programme :

9h30: Welcome address, Mathieu Claveyrolas (CNRS, CEIAS) & Pierre-Yves Trouillet (CNRS, CEIAS)

10h-11hKnut Jacobsen (University of Bergen, Norway)
Hindu Traditions and the Plurality of Religions in the South Asian Diaspora in Norway
Discussant: Raphaël Voix (CNRS, CEIAS)

11h-12hSidharthan Maunaguru (National University of Singapore)
‘Naming the Giving’: Hindu Temples, Politics, Law and Philanthropy in London
Discussant: Delon Madavan (CERIAS, Montréal)

Lunch break

14h-15hPrema Kurien (Syracuse University, USA)
Majority versus Minority: Religious Status in India and Foreign Policy Activism in the United States
Discussant: Aminah Mohammad-Arif (CNRS, CEIAS)

15h-16hFrank Neubert (University of Bern, Switzerland)
From Connecting Hindus to Uniting Global Hinduism: History and Guiding Principles of Hinduism Today
Discussant: Véronique Bouillier  (CNRS, CEIAS)

Contacts : 

Mathieu Claveyrolas (mathieu.claveyrolas@laposte.net)
Pierre-Yves Trouillet (pytrouillet@gmail.com)