Narrow your results

Refine by Access

Refine by Content Type

Refine By Collections

Refine by Date

—
  • Print
  • Save Search

Search Results

You are looking at 1 - 3 of 3 items for

  • Author: Neena Mahadev x
  • Refine by Access: All content x
  • Refine by Content Type: All x
Clear All Modify Search
Open access

The Charism of the Christian Left

Dissidence as Habit in a Time of Bi-polar Theopolitics

Neena Mahadev

Abstract

Through ethnography of recent peaceful dissent by Catholic and Protestant activists, life histories, and a reading of a postcolonial archive of contextually grounded liberation theology, I explore the theopolitics of grace that fuels the habits and habitus of Sri Lanka's ecumenical left. Pluralistic and indigenised forms of Christianity emerged in the era of decolonisation and nationalisation and were emboldened by Vatican II. Distinguishing ecumenical Christian pluralism from evangelical Christian expansion in the region, this article historicises Cold War religiosity, drawing out ‘bi-polar’ contrasts of politically left and right forms of Christian grace. In doing so, I situate religious pluralism within the convulsive era of class and ethnic-based insurrections in Sri Lanka. Analysing the ‘catholicity’, civic nationalism, and post-nationalist self-conceptions held by Sri Lanka's Christian left, I argue that the ‘something extra’ of grace can be fruitfully understood as the cultural accretions and theo-political formations that accrue through localised emplacements of global Christianity.

Cover The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

In  The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology

Published (Print):
01 Mar 2022
Article Type:
Research Article
Pages:
84–103 (20 total)
Restricted access

Post-war Blood

Sacrifice, Anti-sacrifice, and the Rearticulations of Conflict in Sri Lanka

Neena Mahadev

Abstract

Since 2009, in the aftermath of Sri Lanka's ethnic war, certain contingents of Sinhala Buddhists have lodged attacks against religious minorities, whom they censure for committing violence against animals in accordance with the dictates of their gods. Considering these interventions against sacrifice in spaces of shared Hindu and Buddhist religiosity, this article examines the economies of derogation, violence, and scapegoating in post-war Sri Lanka. Within Sinhala Buddhism, sacrifice is considered bio-morally impure yet politically efficacious, whereas meritorious Buddhist discipleship is sacrificial only in aspirational, bloodless terms. Nevertheless, both practices fall within the spectrum of Sinhala Buddhist religious life. Majoritarian imperatives concerning post-war blood impinge upon marginal sites of shared religiosity—spaces where the blood of animals is spilled and, ironically, where political potency can be substantively shored up. The article examines the siting of sacrifice and the purifying majoritarian interventions against it, as Buddhists strive to assert sovereignty over religious others.

Cover Religion and Society

In  Religion and Society

Published (Print):
01 Sep 2019
Article Type:
Research Article
Pages:
130–150 (21 total)
Free access

Introduction

Religious Plurality, Interreligious Pluralism, and Spatialities of Religious Difference

Jeremy F. Walton and Neena Mahadev

Abstract

The introduction to this special section foregrounds the key distinction between ‘religious plurality’ and ‘interreligious pluralism’. Building from the example of a recent controversy over an exhibition on shared religious sites in Thessaloniki, Greece, we analyze the ways in which advocates and adversaries of pluralism alternately place minority religions at the center or attempt to relegate them to the margins of visual, spatial, and political fields. To establish the conceptual scaffolding that supports this special section, we engage the complex relations that govern the operations of state and civil society, sacrality and secularity, as well as spectacular acts of disavowal that simultaneously coincide with everyday multiplicities in the shared use of space. We conclude with brief summaries of the four articles that site religious plurality and interreligious pluralism in the diverse contexts of Brazil, Russia, Sri Lanka, and the Balkans.

Cover Religion and Society

In  Religion and Society

Published (Print):
01 Sep 2019
Article Type:
Introduction
Pages:
81–91 (11 total)