High-Tech Devotion: Experimental Religion and Media Sevā in Swaminarayan Hinduism
This article examines the role of experimentation in religion through a case study of technological labor in a guru-led devotional (bhakti) Hindu organization called BAPS (Bocāsaṇvāsī Śrī Akṣar Puruṣottam Saṇsthā). It builds on recent theories of "experimental religion" to argue that relig...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2024
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| In: |
History of religions
Year: 2024, Volume: 63, Issue: 4, Pages: 349-382 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Hinduism
/ Bhakti
/ New media
/ Religious practice
/ Mediation
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy AG Religious life; material religion AH Religious education BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism TK Recent history ZG Media studies; Digital media; Communication studies |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article examines the role of experimentation in religion through a case study of technological labor in a guru-led devotional (bhakti) Hindu organization called BAPS (Bocāsaṇvāsī Śrī Akṣar Puruṣottam Saṇsthā). It builds on recent theories of "experimental religion" to argue that religious practice operates in a dialectic between tradition and experimentation, and it outlines two types of religious experiments - those of "normal science" and "revolutionary science." The article draws on thirteen months of fieldwork with BAPS members in Gujarat, India, and suburban Chicago who perform devotional service (sevā) producing and circulating mass media from different positions within the organization - lifelong ascetics, salaried employees, and casual practitioners. These ethnographic accounts and the resultant understanding of experimental religion prompt scholars to reconsider classic theoretical divisions between religion and experimentation and counteract dominant narratives of high-tech as an inherent driver of modernizing progress. |
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| ISSN: | 1545-6935 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: History of religions
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1086/729673 |
