Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging: The Heraka Movement in Northeast India

ISBN-13: 9781441196941 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 274 str.

Arkotong Longkumer;Arkotong Longkumer

Opis

Reform, Identity and Narratives of Belonging focuses on the Heraka, a religious reform movement, and its impact on the Zeme, a Naga tribe, in the North Cachar Hills of Assam, India. Drawing upon critical studies of religion, cultural/ethnic identity, and nationalism, archival research in both India and Britain, and fieldwork in Assam, the book initiates new grounds for understanding the evolving notions of reform and identity in the emergence of a Heraka religion . Arkotong Longkumer argues that reform and identity are dynamically inter-related and linked to the revitalisation and negotiation of both tradition legitimising indigeneity, and change legitimising reform. The results have deepened, yet challenged, not only prevailing views of the Western construction of the category religion but also understandings of how marginalised communities use collective historical imagination to inspire self-identification through the discourse of religion. In conclusion, this book argues for a re-evaluation of the way in which multi-religious traditions interact to reshape identities and belongings."

Spis treści

1. Introduction
2. Circling the Alter Stone: Bhuban Cave and the Symbolism of Religious Traditions
3. Millenarianism and Refashioning the Social Fabric
4. Changing Cosmology and the Process of Reform
5. Negotiating Boundaries
6. Community Imaginings and the Ideal of Heguangram

7. Conclusion
Bibliography

Appendices