Making "Unofficial" Sacred Space

Spirit Mediums and House Temples in Singapore

Bibliographic Data

ID4489205
AuthorsTerence Heng (0000-0001-5971-9114, Singapore Institute of Technology, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume106
Issue2
Pages215-234
Publication date2016-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7428 • E-ISSN: 1931-0846
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1931-0846.2015.12156.x
OpenAlexW2286617946
LanguageEN
Citations received23
References cited47

Although there has been significant work done on the creation of sacred space in residential housing, not enough attention has been paid to a particular segment of Chinese religion leadership in Singapore – spirit mediums – and the processes in which they practice within the political ideology of the modernist Singaporean state. In this paper, I will show how spirit mediums operate within "unofficially sacred" spaces, specifically house temples that subvert and resist functionalist policies of the Singapore state. Using two visually focussed, participant‐observation case studies, I will argue that this subversion is sustained in two inter‐related ways—one, through the visual comportment of the spirit medium's body through behavior and aesthetic markers and two, through the social prominence of the spirit medium when he or she is in a trance. These two factors come together to temporally displace the importance of the physical location, allowing a spirit medium to operate in any location, "official" or "unofficial

Aesthetics · Art · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · State (computer science · Subversion · Trance · Visual arts · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Law · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Socioeconomic Development in Asia

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