Establishing Tamil Ritual Space: A Comparative Analysis of the Ritualisation of the Traditions of the Tamil Hindus and the Tamil Roman Catholics in Norway

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to make a contribution to the study of religious pluralism in the south Asian diasporas. The essay compares the establishment of ritual traditions of the Tamil Hindus and the Tamil Roman Catholics in Norway. There are several parallel developments, and the essay identifies some of these similarities. It is argued that features sometimes assumed to be unique of the Hindu diaspora may not always be so, but may be common features of several of the religious traditions of south Asia in the diaspora. Attention to the plurality of religious traditions in the south Asian diasporas is therefore sometimes a better strategy than the study of each religious tradition in isolation.

Being Tamil, being Hindu: Tamil migrants’ negotiations of the absence of Tamil Hindu spaces in the West Midlands and South West of England

“…A similar dynamic could be observed in the rituals arranged by the Tamil Hindu participants in this study. Clearly the Saraswati Pūjā and Ponġal festival occupied a much smaller scale to the elaborate processions analysed by David, Luchesi and others (Goreau 2014;Jacobsen 2008bJacobsen , 2009, and additionally, they are not so obviously 'public': the closed doors of the church hall concealed the pūjā to the Goddess taking place inside, while only the narrow plume of smoke rising into the air and the scent of burning sandalwood betrayed the presence of the Ponġal festivities, which were largely hidden from the road by the car park's fencing. But despite these differences, these small-scale rituals offered a comparable opportunity to 'perform' ethnicity to the city's non-Tamil populace.…”

“Homeless” Deities and Refugee Devotees: Hindu Temples, Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora, and Politics in the United Kingdom

“…The differences in the migration history of each community resonate with the way religious practices and their role in identity formation play out (Samuel 2012). Some communities sacralize the new home and render the religious connection to home redundant, as with the appearance of several mosques and madrasas in the United Kingdom for British Muslim Bangladeshi migrants (Gardner 1997) or the sacralization of a Norwegian river by Hindu religious practices (Jacobsen 2009). Muslim and Hindu religious practices in the diaspora can be a way to re‐create one community identity and seek respect in the new land in terms of purification of religious practices (Hansen 2012) or through ascetism/morality (Werbner 2002).…”

Neue Orte für die Götter

“…Besonders aus den skandinavischen Ländern liegen verhältnismässig viele Studien zur Religiosität von tamilischen Migrantinnen und Migranten vor. Für Norwegen sind besonders die Forschungen von Øivind Fuglerud (1999Fuglerud ( , 2001Fuglerud ( , 2011 und Knut Axel Jacobsen (2003Jacobsen ( , 2004Jacobsen ( , 2006Jacobsen ( , 2008Jacobsen ( , 2009 zu nennen. 55 Marianne Fibiger (2003Fibiger ( , 2011Fibiger ( , 2012 Im Rückblick auf den hier dargestellten Forschungsstand lässt sich konstatieren, dass eine explizit religionswissenschaftlich ausgerichtete Studie, welche einen vertieften Einblick in tamilische Hindu-Traditionen in der Schweiz liefert und dynamische Prozesse innerhalb der religiösen Praxis der Diaspora-Akteure untersucht, bisher fehlt.…”