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

Abstract

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.

Mother Mary in the Hindu Pantheon Among Portuguese Gujarati Families

“…There are other situations of hybridization amongst Hindu diasporas: cultural expressions such as dance performances (Chacko and Menon 2011;Drissel 2011;Roy 2013) and ethnolinguistic references (Eisenlohr 2006). But in what constitutes religion, some diasporas created hyphenated identities (see Persaud 2013), particularly Hindu-Caribbean, where Hinduism and Christianity intersect in rituals and in funeral practices (Manian and Bullock 2016). This continuity between Christianity and Hinduism is also found in India, where both religious traditions coexist and contaminate each other.…”