Women, Ritual and Religion in Urban Asia

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Urban Asia is a space where diverse political and economic lifeworlds compete and negotiate with each other and where women create meaning through everyday ritual practices. Women participate in diverse religious practices in private and public space in both formal and informal ways. Women’s ritual space often acts as a heterotopia - a counter-site that contests the normative order of space. Through this heterotopic mirror women fashion their self-identity as well as their relationship with their social context. Furthermore, these voices and practices trigger social changes and transformations. By means of observing women’s ritual spaces in diverse Asian urban contexts, this panel demonstrates how women negotiate and contest social and familial expectations and thus illustrates an important aspect of the role of religion in the constitution of contemporary urban life. The various papers in this panel trace the effects of heterodox, divergent and/or marginal forms of religious practices on urban lives, desires and subjectivities. Our aim is to explore forms of gendered religious subjectivities and constructions of femininity and masculinity that are generated by religious ritual and practice in the modern urban environment. This conceptual framework allows us to engage with the imbrications of religion, gender and the public/private divide in modern urban life.

Area of Study

• Interarea-Border Crossing-Diaspora

Session Organizer

• Sarwat Viqar, John Abbott College

Chair

• Kaori Fushiki, Taisho University

Individual Presentations

• Ritual Space as an Evolving Process: Young Chinese Female Muslim Converts in Hong Kong - Wai-Chi Chee, The University of Hong Kong

• First among Equals: Analyzing Women’s Ritual Spaces Reworked as Dominant Spaces among Bengali Brahmin Domestic Workers in Kolkata - Anindita Chatterjee, Jawaharlal Nehru University

• Worship, Adoration and Desire: Women’s Ritual Practices in the Shrines of Old Karachi - Sarwat Viqar, John Abbott College

• Peripheral Landmarks in the City: Observing Two Abortion Rituals in Taipei, Taiwan - Grace Cheng-Ying Lin, McGill University

• Modernity and Women’s Ritual Roles in Urban Space: A Case Study of Hungry Ghost Festival in Peninsular Malaysia - Ryoko Sakurada, Ikuei Junior College