Gender, Caste and the Practices of Religious Identities

这个项目的目的是展示流行的宗教实践和文本如何颠覆一系列试图固定宗教身份的强大知识和技术。在横跨印度和巴基斯坦的旁遮普地区，以及在英国，印度教、锡克教和穆斯林的宗教身份表面上被视为独立的传统，有自己独特的崇拜习俗和文字来源。这一观点得到了印度、巴基斯坦和英国国家意识形态的支持，这些国家要求区分宗教，依靠列举和贴标签的工具来延续宗教差异。例如，人口普查和用来定义“宗教少数群体”的标签就是这种工具的例子。然而，从旁遮普礼拜场所的仪式实践的角度来看，这些身份揭示了一系列融合和跨越边界的形态。特别是，妇女和低种姓群体更多地参与并能够通过其边缘性别和种姓地位进行这些做法。可以说，在某种意义上，他们对固定的宗教身份投入较少。我们的目的是具体审查性别和种姓如何在旁遮普省东西被贴上穆斯林、印度教和锡克教徒标签的场所的礼拜者的做法方面对宗教经验的框架做出贡献。旁遮普地区具有重要意义，原因有很多。首先，1947年殖民时期的印度分治导致穆斯林被大规模驱逐出东旁遮普，印度教徒和锡克教徒也从西旁遮普发起了类似的运动。印度和巴基斯坦这两个现代民族国家是通过“宗教清洗”过程形成的，在这个过程中形成了巴基斯坦伊斯兰共和国和“世俗”的印度。在这两个邦，印度教和穆斯林的身份界限变得越来越明显。然而，尽管国家支持不同的技术，共同的礼拜场所，如圣人之墓，或松树，和廓尔德瓦拉，仍然作为融合实践和跨越边界的场所而存在。我们的假设是，随着时间的推移，旁遮普邦的妇女和边缘种姓群体在固定的宗教身份上投入最少，尽管她们在政治动员中有所选择。此外，他们对更受欢迎的宗教形式的参与提供了一个重要的洞察，了解性别和种姓如何塑造宗教实践的经验，同时也通过“大众”手段破坏或改变中央界定的宗教身份。我们还认为，性别和种姓塑造了什么是主流或正统，什么被视为融合和边缘。这是一个跨学科的项目，将涉及宗教研究、社会学、人类学和考据学的文学。这将导致使用多种方法。这项研究将涉及在六个表面上标记为印度教、穆斯林和锡克教徒的地点进行民族志田野调查。将进行面谈，以建立宗教崇拜模式，确保我们对性别和种姓的兴趣达到平衡。该项目还将以日记的形式收集“崇拜传记”，提供对仪式和参考点的深入见解，并特别关注性别和种姓如何标志着人们的宗教经历。独一无二的是，该项目还将跨越两个民族国家，因此将能够探索不同国家意识形态对类似标志空间的影响，例如印度的廓尔都瓦拉和巴基斯坦的另一个。一旦这一分析完成，这一做法在Punjabi散居者的背景下所产生的影响也将在该项目的传播方面提出，因为那里的礼拜场所有限。这是英国和南亚学者之间的合作，巴基斯坦的拉合尔管理科学大学(LUMS)和印度的旁遮普大学直接参与其中。

The aim of this project is to show how popular religious practices and texts subvert a range of powerful knowledges and techniques that attempt to fix religious identity. In the context of the region of Punjab spanning India and Pakistan, as well as in Britain, the religious identities Hindu, Sikh and Muslim are ostensibly treated as separate traditions with their own unique practices of worship and textual sources. This perspective is supported by the state ideologies of India, Pakistan and the UK which, in requiring religious distinction, rely upon tools of enumeration and labeling to perpetuate religious difference. The census and the labels used to define 'religous minorities,' for instance, are examples of such tools. However, viewing these identities from the perspective of ritual practices at places of worship in Punjab reveals a range of syncretic and boundary crossing formations. In particular, it is women and low caste groups who are more engaged and enabled in carrying out these practices through their marginal gender and caste positions. In some senses, it could be argued, they are less invested in fixed religious identities. Our intention is to specifically examine how gender and caste contribute to the framing of religious experience in terms of the practices of worshippers at sites which are ostensibly labelled as Muslim, Hindu and Sikh in East and West Punjab. The region of Punjab is significant for a number of reasons. Firstly, the partition of colonial India in 1947 led to the mass expulsion of Muslims from East Punjab and a similar movement of Hindus and Sikhs from West Punjab. The modern nation states of India and Pakistan were forged in through a 'religious cleansing' process in which an Islamic republic of Pakistan and a 'secular' India were formed. In both states the boundaries of the identities Hindu and Muslim became increasingly pronounced. However, despite state sponsored technologies of difference, common places of worship such as the tombs of saints, or pirs, and Gurdwaras are sustained as sites of syncretic practice and boundary crossing. Our hypothesis is that women and marginal caste groups in Punjab, over time, have been the least invested in fixed religious identities, despite their co-option in political mobilisations. Further to this, their participation in more popular religious forms offers an important insight into how gender and caste shape the experiences of religious practice while also undermining or reworking centrally-defined religious identities through `popular' means. We also argue that gender and caste shape what is mainstream or orthodox and what is seen as syncretic and marginal. This is an interdisciplinary project which will engage in literature from religious studies, sociology, anthropology and textual criticism. This will result in the use of plural methods. The research will involve ethnographic fieldwork in six sites ostensibly marked as Hindu, Muslim and Sikh. Interviews will be undertaken to establish patterns of religious worship, ensuring a balance in terms of our interest in gender and caste. The project will also collect 'biographies of worship' in the form of diaries which will offer in-depth insights into rituals and reference points, with a specific interest in how gender and caste mark people's religious experience. Uniquely, the project will also span two nation states and will therefore be able to explore the impact that different state ideologies have on similarly marked spaces, for example a Gurdwara in India and another in Pakistan. Once this analysis is completed, the implications of this practice in the context of the Punjabi diaspora where sites for worship are limited will also be posed in the dissemination dimension of the project. This is a collaboration between scholars in the UK and South Asia with direct involvement of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Pakistan and Punjabi University in India.