About
The School of Humanities is pleased to invite you to this Transnational Studies (TNS) seminar, which will take place on Friday 16 May 2025 at 12 noon (UK time) on the University of Southampton Avenue Campus, and online.
We are delighted to welcome four speakers.
The speakers
Dr Jen Dickinson, University of Southampton
Dr Rishika Mukhopadhyay, University of Southampton
Dr Jaskiran Bhogal, University of Oxford
Dr Saeed Ahmed, OP Jindal University
About the speakers
Dr Jen Dickinson is Associate Professor in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK. She is a political geographer whose research and writing focuses on diasporic politics and mobilisation, the contributions of diasporas to development, and diasporic civic society. Her current work examines these dynamics in the context of the global Rwandese and Indian diasporas. Her work has received research funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Academy and the European Union. Policy engagement is central to much of her work, and she has consulted for government, third-sector, international organisations and diaspora organisations on diaspora outreach and engagement.
Dr Rishika Mukhopadhyay is a lecturer in Development Geographies at the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences at the University of Southampton, UK. Her research interests span across meaning and politics of living heritage practices and their intersection with craft economy and urban development in India. Her current work investigates transnational diasporic heritage through the lens of sacred practices and is supported by British Academy and Korean National Commission UNESCO. She uses arts-based public engagement exhibitions to make research public facing. Previously she held positions at University of Exeter and University of Durham.Add any general series information here if relevant.
TNS Seminar: Worlding diasporic religious politics through sacred heritage
There is a complex interplay between religion, identity and political engagement amongst diaspora communities. Traditionally, the concept of political transnationalism is used to explain the ways that diasporas’ religious practices serve as a means of asserting political claims across both homeland and host societies. In this presentation we will discuss preliminary findings from ongoing research with Indian diaspora groups in the UK and creative heritage practitioners restoring sacred sites globally. Specifically, we examine the everyday spiritual values, aesthetics, symbolisms and practices that produce contested diasporic articulations of sacred space across the UK, South Asia and East Africa. This paper advances the concept of ‘sacred worlding’, as a political ontology productive of religious worlds, to capture the braiding of everyday religious practice, politics and history within poetic, craft and musical expressions of sacred heritage. Our preliminary findings show that diasporic forms of support for sacred heritage take four forms: 1. multiscalar diplomatic and lobbying work, 2. embodied spiritual labour, 3. philanthropic giving, and 4. exchange of sacred material objects. These practices are characterised by fluid intersections and diverse expressions of caste, religion and generation across migration and settlement histories. Subscribing to alternative geographies of diaspora (Ashutosh 2020), we specifically argue that the concept of sacred worlding, as a means of capturing the plural human, symbolic and sensory production of religious projects, can help to move forward debates on diasporic religious politics. Sacred worlding can deepen empirical analysis of creative and crafted forms of religious expression, develop contextually specific perspectives across diasporic settlement journeys, and relocate the geographies of diasporic religious politics across interconnected scales, spaces and sites.
Event Information
Guests can join this event in person at Avenue Campus, University of Southampton, or online. Please select your ticket choice when booking.
We encourage guests who wish to join in person to register at your earliest opportunity as spaces are strictly limited.
If you have any questions about this event please contact fahevent@soton.ac.uk.
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