juthaa in Trinidad: food, pollution, and hierarchy in a Caribbean diaspora community

Khan, Aisha

doi:10.1525/ae.1994.21.2.02a00020

Cited by 38 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…Among Indo-Trinidadians, Aisha Khan describes the "pollution ideology" of "juthaa" (pronounced joot-ta)-a Hindi/Urdu word for food "defiled by eating, drinking, or using otherwise"-and she elaborates on the extension of this concept: "Juthaa in this sense does not refer to regurgitated food, that which already has been consumed; it signifies the remaining food that has been symbolically tainted by association with another person (really, another person's essence, concretized as bodily substance, e.g., saliva, sweat, etc.)" ( [39], p. 246). Whereas among Indo-Trinidadians this "pollution ideology" is extended to describe other aspects of defilement, in St. Lucia, its conceptual meaning is neither recognized nor extended in this way.…”

Section: (Emphasis Added)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing Hinduism: Lucian-Indian Funeral “Feast” as Glocalized Ritual1

Manian

Bullock

2016

Religions

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Migrant narratives of Indo-Caribbean religious practices in the smaller island states of the Caribbean are rare, and that Diaspora's funerary traditions are even less explored. This scholarly lacuna is addressed here by using data from ethnographic research conducted in St. Lucia to examine the funerary ritual of a Lucian-Indian "feast" through the multidisciplinary lens of glocalization. Specifically, we investigate the following: (a) ways that the diasporic identity of Lucian-Indians has been adapted and re-configured within a local-global nexus; (b) the extent to which there has been a local construction of a distinct socio-spatial identity among Lucian-Indians, one retaining "Hinduness" even as they assimilated into the larger St. Lucian society; and (c) whether glocal characteristics can be identified in the performance of a particular funeral feast. Following Roudometof, we posit that many aspects of a Lucian-Indian ethno-religious funerary ritual demonstrate indigenized and transnational glocalization.

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Section: (Emphasis Added)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensing Hinduism: Lucian-Indian Funeral “Feast” as Glocalized Ritual1

Manian

Bullock

2016

Religions

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“…Many cultural studies of diaspora groups focused primarily on the retention and transmission of cultural traits within migrant communities (e.g., [31][32][33]39]). The same cultural focus was noted in early archaeological studies on African diasporas, which comprised the bulk of these initial diaspora studies [40]; Webster (2010 [41]) provides a thorough review of the African diaspora, an event in which over 10 million Africans were enslaved and transported by force to the Western Hemisphere during the 400 year-long Atlantic slave trade [11].…”

Section: Diasporasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Understanding Human Migration Patterns and their Utility in Forensic Human Identification Cases

Holobinko

2012

Societies

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Human migration patterns are of interest to scientists representing many fields. Theories have been posited to explain modern human evolutionary expansion, the diversity of human culture, and the motivational factors underlying an individual or group decision to migrate. Although the research question and subsequent approach may vary between disciplines, one thread is ubiquitous throughout most migration studies: why do humans migrate and what is the result of such an event? While the determination of individual attributes such as age, sex, and ancestry is often integral to migration studies, the positive identification of human remains is usually irrelevant. However, the positive identification of a deceased is paramount to a forensic investigation in which human remains have been recovered and must be identified. What role, if any, might the study of human movement patterns play in the interpretation of evidence associated with unidentified human remains? Due to increasing global mobility in the world's populations, it is not inconceivable that an individual might die far away from his or her home. If positive identification cannot immediately be made, investigators may consider various theories as to how or why a deceased ended up in a particular geographic location. While scientific evidence influences the direction of forensic investigations, qualitative evaluation can be an important component of evidence interpretation. This review explores several modern human migration theories and the methodologies utilized to identify evidence of human migratory movement before addressing the practical application of migration theory to forensic cases requiring the identification of human remains.

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“…The tendency has been, on the one hand, for works which focus on corporate identity in diasporic settings to overlook the significance of pollution ideologies and, on the other hand, for analyses of pollution prohibitions among diasporic Hindus to describe adherence to pollution taboos as largely an individual concern (e.g. Brenneis 1981;Jayawardena 1971;Kelly 1991Kelly , 2001Khan 1994;Vertovec 1997).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Cleanliness in a Caste-less Context: Collective Negotiations of Purity and Pollution among Indo-Fijian Hindus

Trnka¹

2012

Anthropological Forum

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Despite the near elimination of caste in Fiji, Indo-Fijian Hindus widely adhere to pollution ideologies that were once associated with caste hierarchies. In this paper, I analyse how such ideologies have been transformed from demarcating caste status to indexing Hindu identity. Examining a hotly contested community debate that took place when members of a Hindu devotional singing group in Fiji were accused of praying while being 'unclean', I argue that the intense local interest incited by such allegations-along with highly creative acts of adherence that many Indo-Fijian women undertake to avoid similar accusations-can illuminate largely unexamined aspects of how women collectively comply with pollution prohibitions, while simultaneously investing them with further social and moral force.On the outskirts of the Fijian capital of Suva, a local Hindu women's prayer group was in the midst of a group shopping expedition when a vociferous dispute broke out, threatening to tear apart not only the prayer group, but also putting relations to the test in the small, predominantly Hindu village in which most of its members lived. The argument was sparked off when a group of women from the local Hindu kirtan club, a devotional singing group, went to purchase items for an upcoming religious ceremony and lost track of a relatively minor amount of money (less than six Fijian dollars). What followed was a series of increasingly serious accusations of wrongdoing: over the next few months allegations and counter-allegations of immoral conduct were flung back and forth across the village. Many of the allegations involved the women's upholding of pollution taboos, including their responses to death and menstrual pollution, as a growing number of women were accused of

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juthaa in Trinidad: food, pollution, and hierarchy in a Caribbean diaspora community

Cited by 38 publications

References 21 publications

Sensing Hinduism: Lucian-Indian Funeral “Feast” as Glocalized Ritual1

Sensing Hinduism: Lucian-Indian Funeral “Feast” as Glocalized Ritual1

Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Understanding Human Migration Patterns and their Utility in Forensic Human Identification Cases

Cleanliness in a Caste-less Context: Collective Negotiations of Purity and Pollution among Indo-Fijian Hindus

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