Religion
- Processes ofReligious Reconstruction amongst Britain’s South Asian minorities: a reflection on the dialectic consequences of reverse colonisation
- by Roger Ballard
Taking off from Max Weber's distinction between 'enchanted' and 'disenchanted' conceptual universes, this Chapter explores the dynamics of religious reconstruction amongst Hindu, Sikh and especially Muslim settlers in the UK, as well their locally-born ofspring. In doing so it explores the tensions that have developed as between the 'enchanted' and 'disenchanted' dimensions of all three of these traditions, as well as the way in which the emergence of neo-fundamentalism on all sides has contributed to the increasing salience of religious polarisation.
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Mādri Muzhub in the Punjabi diaspora: the re-establishment of meaning in an alien environment - by Roger Ballard
Building further on the analysis developed above, this paper explores the ways in which the resources of the kismetic domain are being deployed to reconstruct metaphisically-grounded worlds of meaning and purpose by Punjabi settlers in the UK - Is The Concept Of Religion Universalism? - by Prakash Shah
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Panth, Kismet, Dharm te Qaum: four dimensions of Punjabi religion - by Roger Ballard
Against the background of ever greater levels of ethnic polarization between all three of Punjab's major religious traditions, and a resulting tendency for each tradition to be represented in essentialistic terms, this paper sets out to show that the historical roots of these tendencies are extremely shallow. Developing a counter-view, it suggests that such politically-driven understandings of the religious scene in Punjab are strongly Euro-centric in character, and argues that a greater sensitivity to the logic of popular ideas and practices, together with an awareness of the different levels at which Punjabi religion operates reveals a much higher level of overlap between the three traditions than current discourse normally allows for. - Islam and the Construction of Europe - by Roger Ballard
This paper explores the historical grounding of Europe-as-Christendom, and suggests on that basis not only that the greater part of contemporary Western European Islamophobia is but a rearticulation of an ideology which was first established in the aftermath of the Crusades, but also that the much more generalized fear of alterity which is such a characteristic feature of Western European cultural traditions can be traced back to the theological and cosmological vision originally propagated by Saint Augustine. -
Popular Islam in Pakistan and its reconstruction in Britain - by Roger Ballard
The core of this paper is an empirical account of the way in which Islam - as popularly understood - pervades the lives, thoughts, and experiences of the rural population of Pakistani Punjab. It then goes on to suggest that these understandings - which often differ sharply from those currently regarded as orthodox' - are nevertheless directly inspired by a creative admixture between spiritual traditions which are indigenous to South Asia and the teachings of Muin-ud-Din Ibn 'Arabi. Last but not least it considers the additional transformations which are currently being precipitated as this tradition re-establishes itself in the UK. -
The Politics of Religion in Punjab - by Roger Ballard
An exploration of the roots and development of processes of ethno-religious polarization in contermporary Punjab. -
Religion and the Legitimation of Violence - by Roger Ballard
A review of historical variations in the nexus between religion and violence in the Christian, Muslim and Hindu traditions presented as a background to the growing impact of Protestant-inspired neo-fundamentalism in all three of these traditions during the course of the the past century. -
Continuity And Variety In Islamic Thought And Practice: A Cosmologically Grounded Overview - by Roger Ballard
A brief text-book style introduction to Islamic theology. - The conceptual foundations of the Hindu Cosmological vision: and intoroductory glossary - by Roger Ballard
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The Development of the Sikh Tradition - by Roger Ballard
Prepared for Microsoft Encarta, this article appeared in the 1996 version. However as a result of protests organized through Khalsanet, Microsoft headquarters in Seattle (which found itself bombarded with emails) removed this article from the next edition. -
'My Dad's Hindu, my Mum's side are Sikhs': Issues in religious identity - by Eleanor Nesbitt
This detailed ethnographic study of popular forms of religious belief and practice amongst east Punjabi migrants and their British-born offspring provides a richly illuminating insight into the complex character of the processes of religious construction which have begun to take place within Britain's rapidly maturing South Asian Ethnic colonies. As such this study offers a powerful antidote to idealized - and hence misleadingly essentialised - accounts of South Asian religions as free-standing, autonomous and internally homogeneous entities. -
Challenging Paradigms: Popular Religious Practice in South Asia - by Roger Ballard
Arguing that observations of everyday religious and spiritual practice provides a necessary complement to the study of textual sources, this presentation (which can also be viewed as an on-line slide show) explores the remarkable continuities in the devotional activities which take place at Punjabi shrines - no matter whether they are nominally designated as 'Hindu', 'Sikh' or Muslim. -
The Legitimization of a Regional Folk Cult: the Transmigration of Baba Balaknath from Rural Punjab to Urban Europe - by Ron Geaves
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The Bitter Drama of the Sikhs - by Roger Ballard
This paper, which originally appeared in New Society, was published in the immediate aftermath of the Indian Army's assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984. It sets the rising support gained by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale in the economic and political context of that period. -
Punjab's Uneasy Calm - by Roger Ballard
A report from Punjab written twelve months after the assault on the Golden Temple. -
Waris Shah's epic tale of The Adventures of Hir and Ranjha, as translated by Frederick Usborne
- The History and Current Position of Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh Population - by Roger Ballard
An overview of the history of Afghanistan's indigenous Sikh and Hindu population, of the diaporic exodus precipitated by the rising forces of neo-fundamentalism, and the efforts of the UK immigration authorities to dismiss and disregard these developments.
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The Logic of Cremation in Indic Contexts: An Anthropological Analysis - by Roger Ballard
An expert report prepared for use in a Judicial Review of the Newcastle City Council's interpretation of the 1902 Cremation Act, and its consequent decision that not to allow open pyre cremations conducted according to Hindu rites to be performed within its jurisdiction.
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Three further Addenda to the above- by Roger Ballard
In the face of the extent to which ‘religion’ has come to be regarded but nevertheless universally applicable concept in contemporary discourse, this paper problematises established assumptions by locating its premises in the three Abrahamic traditions, and most especially the way in which those traditions have been interpreted in the Protestant traditions of Western Europe. If the concept of religion is culture-specific, it is doubtful as whether analyses based in such emic premises can serve to iluminate the contentious issues currently emerging in contexts of religious plurality.