Guyana Junction. Globalisation, localisation, and the production of East Indianness

Guyana Junction. Globalisation, localisation, and the production of East Indianness PDF Author: Johannes Gerrit de Kruijf
Publisher: Rozenberg Publishers
ISBN: 9036100585
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description

Guyana Junction. Globalisation, localisation, and the production of East Indianness

Guyana Junction. Globalisation, localisation, and the production of East Indianness PDF Author: Johannes Gerrit de Kruijf
Publisher: Rozenberg Publishers
ISBN: 9036100585
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description


Sanatana Dharma and Plantation Hinduism (Second Edition Volume 1)

Sanatana Dharma and Plantation Hinduism (Second Edition Volume 1) PDF Author: Ramesh Gampat
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1796078018
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
Christian Missionaries worked hard to convert immigrants. Their first order of business was to denigrate Hinduism, designate Hindus as heathen, and disparage their culture, food and even attire. Immigrants stubbornly resisted, led by the tiny educated elite, including Brhmaas whom we call Brahmins. Conversion was a failure at least up to the end of the 19th century but picked up a self-generating momentum thereafter. The result is that the share of Hindus in Guyana’s Indian population declined from 83.5 percent in 1880 to 62.8 percent in 2012. The largest portion of the contraction was lost to Christianity. The loss notwithstanding, even a casual observer would conclude that Guyanese Hindus, at home and in the Diaspora, are a very religious people. Many of us do a jhandi or havan once annually; others do the more elaborate and costlier yajña, where everyone is welcome, once or twice in their lifetime. Most of us do a short daily puja – prayers, offerings, reading the stras and listening to bhajan – in our homes. An important, but perhaps unintended, way immigrants countered conversion to Christianity was an unplanned movement towards a “synthesis” that brought Hindus, regardless of caste or sect, under a “unitary form of Hinduism.” The “synthesis” began around the 1870s and was completed by the 1930s to the 1950s. Guyanese Hindus call the unified corpus of religious beliefs and practices that emerged from the “synthesis” Sanatana Dharma. Ramesh Gampat labels it Plantation Hinduism in this path-breaking book. The book argues that the brand of Hinduism practiced is inconsistent with Sanatana Dharma, called Vednta by the more philosophically inclined. Plantation Hinduism features an extraordinary dependence upon purohits (pandits), which has anaesthetized the Hindu mind and render him unable to think, question and inquire when it comes to Dharma. Rituals and bhakti have been degraded and turned into desire-motivated worship; devats have been misconstrued as Brahman rather than as limited manifestation of the one non-dual pure Consciousness; belief in the multiplicity of gods encourages image worship; and superstitions anchor Guyanese Hindus to tradition and mere belief. Plantation Hinduism is little more than desire-motivated actions, dogmas and superstitions. Absent is the idea that Sanatana Dharma is a spiritual science no less scientific than hard sciences, such as physics and astronomy. The central message of Vednta is the innate divinity of every person and the freedom to realize that divinity through anubhava, direct personal experience of Supreme Reality.

Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour

Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour PDF Author: Maurits S. Hassankhan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351986724
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
This book is the first publication originating from the conference Legacy of Slavery and Indentured Labour: Past, Present and Future, which was organised in June 2013, by the Institute of Graduate Studies and Research (IGSR), Anton de Kom University of Suriname.

Nepali Diaspora in a Globalised Era

Nepali Diaspora in a Globalised Era PDF Author: Tanka B. Subba
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317411048
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This is one of the first books to explore Nepali diaspora in a global context, across India and other parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and Australia. It discusses the social, political and economic status and aspirations of the Nepali community worldwide. The essays in the volume cover a range of themes including belonging and identity politics among Nepalese migrants, representation of Indian Nepalis in literature, diasporic consciousness, forceful eviction and displacement, social movements, and ritual practices among migrant communities. Drawing attention to the lives of Nepali emigrants, the volume presents a sensitive and balanced understanding of their options and constraints, and their ambivalences about who they are. This work will be invaluable to scholars and students of Nepal studies, area studies, diaspora and migration studies, social anthropology, cultural studies and literature.

Localization and Globalization of Religions

Localization and Globalization of Religions PDF Author: Maurits S Hassankhan
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1837651396
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Explores the adaptation of Hinduism and Islam in diasporic settings and inter-religious relations in the Girmit diaspora. Archival research, micro-biographies, and ethnographic studies shine light on the development of Hindu and Muslim communities around the world, and the relationships between them, to deliver new insights into the history of indentured labour and its impact on the formation of religious heritage and identity. Twelve chapters cover regions including the Southern Pacific, Indian Ocean, and the Caribbean. Part I examines Hinduism in Mauritius, South Africa, Fiji and the Caribbean, while Part II considers the Muslim diaspora. Importantly, Part III looks at the relationships between these two religious groups within the Girmit diaspora, including interreligious cooperation and the experiences of religiously mixed families. Includes perspective from historians, sociologists, anthropologists, linguists and others. Features contributors based in Australia, France, Fiji, Mauritius, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago and the USA.

Burning the Dead

Burning the Dead PDF Author: David Arnold
Publisher: University of California Press
ISBN: 0520379349
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Burning the Dead traces the evolution of cremation in India and the South Asian diaspora across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Through interconnected histories of movement, space, identity, and affect, it examines how the so-called traditional practice of Hindu cremation on an open-air funeral pyre was culturally transformed and materially refashioned under British rule, following intense Western hostility, colonial sanitary acceptance, and Indian adaptation. David Arnold examines the critical reception of Hindu cremation abroad, particularly in Britain, where India formed a primary reference point for the cremation debates of the late nineteenth century, and explores the struggle for official recognition of cremation among Hindu and Sikh communities around the globe. Above all, Arnold foregrounds the growing public presence and assertive political use made of Hindu cremation, its increasing social inclusivity, and its close identification with Hindu reform movements and modern Indian nationhood.

Stepping Out of The Herd

Stepping Out of The Herd PDF Author: Seelall Persaud
Publisher: FriesenPress
ISBN: 1039131360
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Stepping Out of the Herd is the author’s first-hand account about policing in the South American country during the 1980s until the 2000s. Seelall Persaud details his life and times growing up in a rural farming community in the former British colony and also plunges the reader into a deep well of information and analysis about the country’s historical, cultural, and political landscape. The book serves as a primer for readers to gain insight into the complexities of the country, its people, and its system of policing. From training in the jungles and eating snake, working his way up from the frontlines of the Guyana Police Force through professional development and operational exposure locally and in international settings such as with the FBI National Academy and the Scottish Police College, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and rising to the highest echelon in the police profession, the author’s insider knowledge is evident. Stepping Out of the Herd is an exposition that reveals a unique perspective on the continuum of law enforcement in Guyana. The author used his research and experiences to define whose interests the police force was designed to serve, whose it actually served at varying periods of its history and what impact it had on the society. In so doing, he explained the factors that created the acute ethnic imbalance in the organization and those that sustained it on to present. In the final chapter, he offers meaningful recommendations for change.

South Asian Diasporas and (Imaginary) Homelands

South Asian Diasporas and (Imaginary) Homelands PDF Author: Clelia Clini
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040255280
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
This edited volume looks at the ways in which films, literature, photography and social media construct images of homelands and diasporas as well as the ways in which they facilitate exchanges between them. The volume presents with a dialogue between these representations and analyses how they are constructed, disseminated, appropriated and/or challenged in relation to recent political developments in South Asia and in the diaspora. Focusing on images and narratives about South Asia and its diaspora, the book aims to re-centre the political nature of representations, as it addresses the interplay between representation, imagination and identity, with a specific focus on the South Asian diasporic experience. This book will interest students and scholars of media, communication, popular culture, cultural studies, Asian studies, politics and sociology. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South Asian Diaspora.

Sanatana Dharma and Plantation Hinduism (Second Edition Volume 2)

Sanatana Dharma and Plantation Hinduism (Second Edition Volume 2) PDF Author: Ramesh Gampat
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1796078573
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Christian Missionaries worked hard to convert immigrants. Their first order of business was to denigrate Hinduism, designate Hindus as heathen, and disparage their culture, food and even attire. Immigrants stubbornly resisted, led by the tiny educated elite, including Brhmaas whom we call Brahmins. Conversion was a failure at least up to the end of the 19th century but picked up a self-generating momentum thereafter. The result is that the share of Hindus in Guyana’s Indian population declined from 83.5 percent in 1880 to 62.8 percent in 2012. The largest portion of the contraction was lost to Christianity. The loss notwithstanding, even a casual observer would conclude that Guyanese Hindus, at home and in the Diaspora, are a very religious people. Many of us do a jhandi or havan once annually; others do the more elaborate and costlier yajña, where everyone is welcome, once or twice in their lifetime. Most of us do a short daily puja – prayers, offerings, reading the stras and listening to bhajan – in our homes. An important, but perhaps unintended, way immigrants countered conversion to Christianity was an unplanned movement towards a “synthesis” that brought Hindus, regardless of caste or sect, under a “unitary form of Hinduism.” The “synthesis” began around the 1870s and was completed by the 1930s to the 1950s. Guyanese Hindus call the unified corpus of religious beliefs and practices that emerged from the “synthesis” Sanatana Dharma. Ramesh Gampat labels it Plantation Hinduism in this path-breaking book. The book argues that the brand of Hinduism practiced is inconsistent with Sanatana Dharma, called Vednta by the more philosophically inclined. Plantation Hinduism features an extraordinary dependence upon purohits (pandits), which has anaesthetized the Hindu mind and render him unable to think, question and inquire when it comes to Dharma. Rituals and bhakti have been degraded and turned into desire-motivated worship; devats have been misconstrued as Brahman rather than as limited manifestation of the one non-dual pure Consciousness; belief in the multiplicity of gods encourages image worship; and superstitions anchor Guyanese Hindus to tradition and mere belief. Plantation Hinduism is little more than desire-motivated actions, dogmas and superstitions. Absent is the idea that Sanatana Dharma is a spiritual science no less scientific than hard sciences, such as physics and astronomy. The central message of Vednta is the innate divinity of every person and the freedom to realize that divinity through anubhava, direct personal experience of Supreme Reality.

Multiple Homemaking

Multiple Homemaking PDF Author: Ruben Gowricharn
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000220044
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Book Description
This book develops a theoretical perspective on homemaking as the ethnic condition of Indian diaspora communities. It draws on empirical case studies to elucidate the multiple homemaking practices of two overseas Indian groups and their relations to their homeland, namely the Surinami Hindustanis and the Dutch Hindustanis. In doing so, it provides a new perspective on homemaking that captures ethnogenesis, integration and diasporic bonding at once. As opposed to the extant discourse on homemaking which overlooks institutional and cultural requirements, the author makes a point to scrutinise such concepts as douglarisation, groupism, citizenship, institutions, ethnification, social networks and technology, and transnational flows. Unique and compelling, the book will be highly useful in studies of diaspora, globalisation and transnational migration, multiculturalism, cultural studies, ethnic minority studies, sociology, politics and international relations, and South Asian studies.