Producing locality
Space, houses and public culture in a Hindu festival in Malaysia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3864686 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Yeoh Seng Guan (Sunway College, 5 Jalan Kolej, Bandar Sunway, 46150 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia), Seng‐guan Yeoh (0000-0002-2072-7392, Sunway University, corresponding author), Yeoh Seng Guan Yeoh Seng Guan (Sunway College, 5 Jalan Kolej, Bandar Sunway, 46150 Petaling Jaya, Malaysia) |
| Year | 2001 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 33-64 |
| Publication date | 2001-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contributions to Indian Sociology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0069-9659 • E-ISSN: 0069-9667 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/006996670103500103 |
| OpenAlex | W2094679487 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 27 |
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
Aesthetics · Art · Communitas · Dialectic · Epistemology · Hinduism · Immediacy · Liminality · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Public space · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Law · Music History and Culture · Religious studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
The divine hierarchy
The Symbolic Construction of Community
Religion and society among the Coorgs of South India
Fluid Signs
An Untouchable Community in South India
The production of locality
Hindu Goddesses
The Production of Locality
The Many Faces of Murukan
The Symbolic Construction of Community
About the House
The Logic of Practice
Indians in Malaysia and Singapore
Public Faces, Private VoicesCommunity and Individuality in South India
Taipūcam in Malaysia
The symbolic merger of body, space and cosmos in Hindu Tamil Nadu
Ritual change in the Hindu temples of Penang
Sanskritization and Indian Ethnicity in Malaysia
Heaven in Transition
Indians in Malaysia and Singapore
Colour and Heat in South Indian Ritual
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,19 |
| Citation span | 2005 - 2022 (18) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |