Studying race in the field of South Asian religions

Bibliographic Data

ID4772993
AuthorsSonja Thomas (0000-0002-6216-7872, Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies Colby College Waterville Maine USA, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume15
Issue4
Publication date2021-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligion Compass (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-8171 • E-ISSN: 1749-8171
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/rec3.12394
OpenAlexW3138699599
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited28

In this commentary, I discuss scholarship on race in study of religion in South Asia. Using my experiences in the field, I look at how and why studies on race are marginalized, dismissed, and/or misread. I argue that without a feminist analysis informed by women of color feminisms and queer of color critique, race scholarship will only continue to be marginalized and/or misread even as the field of South Asian religions tries to center race as an object of analysis. I foreground race and caste power as a way to critique how threads of power run through much of the field of South Asian religions and structures the ways in which scholarship on race is approached (or not). As Asian studies broadly and South Asian Studies specifically creates new avenues for scholarship on race, the study of religion in South Asia must examine how racism is institutionalized within the field

Asian studies · Caste · China · Critical race theory · Field (mathematics) · Political science · Power (physics) · Queer · Race (biology) · Racism · Scholarship · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Law · Race, History, and American Society · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research

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