Respective research projects in India by the two Elon University professors examine competing ideas of what constitutes Hindu heritage.
Two members of Elon’s Department of Religious Studies faculty presented research in June in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Religion and Culture.
Amy Allocco, an associate professor of religious studies, and Brian Pennington, director of Elon’s Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, are both scholars of Hinduism whose research brings them frequently to South Asia.
Pennington’s paper, “Unstable Tradition: Heritage and the Religious in the Garhwal Himalaya of North India”, is based on his ongoing research project based in a Hindu pilgrimage city in the mountains of Uttarakhand state. His presentation at the conference analyzed the role of two organizations, one a environmental activist group and the other a theater troupe, in developing politically expedient representations of Indian heritage.
“Heritage is a malleable concept,” Pennington said, “in India as much as in the U.S. The appeal to an idealized past helps advance a group’s specific agenda and may or may not have a strong relationship to the actual past.”
Allocco’s paper, “Heritage and Authenticity in an Era of Shifting Ritual and Physical Geographies,” examined rituals and other actions undertaken to address defects in a person’s horoscope as they are now conducted in three places: at an Indian temple famous for the removal of these “blemishes,” in North American Hindu temples, and on the internet. Allocco concluded that “perceptions of heritage are shifting along with ideas about the locus of authority and authenticity for many transnational Hindus. In the context of these new physical and ritual geographies, the aspiration to return to India’s sacred sites may be displaced by a willingness to undertake ritual performances at North American temples, and the ritual therapies suggested by family astrologers and priests may be supplanted by those recommended by Internet interlocutors.”
The SSEASR is an organization of scholars who study religion and are located primarily in South and Southeast Asia. It meets biennially in a site that rotates between those two regions. “Religious Studies is not a discipline commonly taught in Asia,” Pennington said. “But this organization represents an international effort to raise the profile of the academic study of religion outside the U.S. and Europe.”
Allocco also met with the Women Scholars Network of the International Association for the History of Religion, on whose steering committee she also serves. The SSEASR is a regional affiliate of the IAHR. Allocco is also chair of the International Connections Committee of the American Academy of Religion, whom she represented at the conference.
Allocco and Pennington have been long-term supporters of the organization. “The SSEASR gives me a chance to work with colleagues in Asian institutions who have different perspectives on the role and study of religion than I might,” Allocco said.
“For those few North American or European scholars who attend, it is a valuable opportunity to hear feedback about our research we might not get at the conferences we more regularly attend,” added Pennington.
The SSEASR meets next in 2017 in Malaysia.