Purity, piety, and power: Culture and identity among Hindus and Muslims in Trinidad.
Item
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Title
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Purity, piety, and power: Culture and identity among Hindus and Muslims in Trinidad.
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Identifier
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AAI9530888
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identifier
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9530888
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Creator
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Khan, Aisha.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Shirley Lindenbaum
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Date
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1995
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Anthropology, Cultural | History, Latin American | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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This dissertation presents an ethnographic and historical study of the social construction of identity among Hindu and Muslim East Indians in two rural proletarian communities in southern Trinidad. Its objectives are: (1) to demonstrate the mutually constitutive relationships among ethnic, racial, and religious identities in a multicultural, postcolonial context; (2) to explore the nature of interpretive categories and problematize anthropology's use of them; (3) to interrogate the scholarly depiction of overseas South Asians and the study of diasporic processes.;Based on 20 months of fieldwork (1987-1989), the study analyzes the construction of ethnicity and race through the prism of religious idioms. These idioms contain protean and multilayered leitmotifs which are ideological in their authority, reflecting the broader conditions of social inequality experienced by both Indo-Trinidadians and Afro-Trinidadians. Religious idioms thus convey critical messages about history, culture, tradition, justice, and morality, which serve as diagnostic emblems of identity among Hindus and Muslims.;The analysis is based on data gathered from oral historiographies and everyday discourse among Indo-Trinidadians, particularly regarding perceptions of diaspora, changes in cultural and religious traditions, and relations with Afro-Trinidadians. Data was also primarily gathered from devotional rituals known as "functions." As pedagogical arenas, functions constitute efforts among Hindus and Muslims to establish cultural authenticity, religious piety, and national legitimacy as they contend with social inequality. The dissertation argues that in determining authenticity, piety, and legitimacy, both oral historiography and functions work in complex ways to maintain conceptual distinctions between the sacred and the profane. These distinctions shape the ways in which boundaries between "religion" and "culture" are made significant, and thus how ethnic identity is forged.;The study further suggests that a trope of purity is salient in Trinidadian identity discourses, which decisively informs sacrality and structures religious idioms among Indo-Trinidadians. An examination of this trope is called for, as it orchestrates the construction of group boundaries, the power of race as an interpretive category, and the negotiation of ethnic and class conflict.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
