Mumbai is generally recognized as an environment of extraordinary religious diversity. The city is known at one and the same time for a habitual cosmopolitanism and a series of violent religion-related conflicts and clashes. While there is much academic scholarship on various aspects of urban history and realities, this volume is the first international academic publication focusing on religion(s) in Mumbai. An extended introductory essay provides a scenario of the religious history of the city from the earliest colonial periods to the present; it also discusses such topics as public celebration and landmark religious places. By taking a thematic approach, the contributions highlight the dynamics of religious life in the city. Chapters discuss spatial settings such as so-called slums (Dharavi) and ghettos (Mumbra), but also roadside shrines and taxis. Other chapters focus on class and civil society organizations. Contributions discuss the crossing of religious boundaries, e.g., in dealing with intermarriage and conversion, and challenges faced by religious groups as to how to reconcile the religious diversity of the city with their own desire for recognition. Lines of tension and conflict often run within, and not so much between, communities.
The two final chapters of the volume address the reflection of religion in fiction set in Mumbai and in the work of the Bombay poet Arun Kolatkar.
Edited by:
Prof Michael Stausberg (Professor Professor University of Bergen)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 223mm,
Width: 145mm,
Spine: 22mm
Weight: 1g
ISBN: 9780192889379
ISBN 10: 0192889370
Pages: 316
Publication Date: 07 September 2023
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Michael Stausberg: Preface 1: Michael Stausberg: Religion in Bombay/Mumbai: A scenario 2: Martin Fuchs: Beyond Diversity: Precarious Belonging and Religious Conjunctions - Dalits in Dharavi 3: Sumanya Anand Velamur: Does Violence Beget the Ghetto? Evidence from Ethnography in Mumbra 4: David J. Strohl: Encountering Religious Difference in the City: Some Reflections on the Participation of Ismaili Muslims in Islamic Revivalism 5: Patrick Eisenlohr: Twelver Shi'i Muslims' Right to the City: Public Performance, Media Practices, and Urban Atmospheres 6: Tanvi Patel-Banerjee: Middle-Class Muslims: Forms and Engagement with Islam 7: Raminder Kaur and Faisal Syed Mohammed: 'God is with the Patient People': Festival, Class and Interreligious Engagement 8: Gopika Solanki: Transgressive Spaces: Women's Organizations and Intentional Interventions in Politics of Inter-religious Marriage 9: Anna Charlotta Osterberg: Strategic Roadside Shrines in High-risk Zones: Baba for Peace 10: Michael Stausberg: Taxis as Public Micro-spaces of Religion: Practices, Symbols, and Communication 11: Claire C. Robison: Movement and Place-making: Multiple Crossings in the Lives of Mumbai's ISKCON Members 12: Heinz Werner Wessler: Towards the Apocalyptic: Myth, Metaphor, and the Dystopic in Contemporary Mumbai Literature 13: William Elison: A Hole in the Wall: Religion in the Poetry of Arun Kolatkar
Michael Stausberg earned his Ph.D. in religious studies at the University of Bonn (1995). He worked at universities in Sweden (Uppsala), Germany (Heidelberg, Tübingen), and Switzerland (Bern) before joining the University of Bergen (Norway) in 2014. Stausberg lectured at the Collège de France (Paris) and the Getty Center (Los Angeles). He was a Fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Erfurt). Additionally, he chaired a group at the Center for Advanced Studies, Norwegian Academy of Sciences (Oslo), and was also a Visiting Fellow at Trinity College (Cambridge).
