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Zusatztext "Singh bounces back and forth between vivid descriptions of the pilgrimage and empathic accounts of the Kanwarias' everyday life struggles in a neoliberal economy. Challenging theories of secularism, modernisation, and religious fundamentalism, he thereby skilfully situates the pilgrims, the 'fools' as the term bhola and the resentment against the Kanwar suggests, in post-colonial capitalism.... Uprising of the Fools is a rich ethnography of the Kanwar pilgrimage and offers a timely critical engagement with epistemologies surrounding religion." Informationen zum Autor Vikash Singh is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Montclair State University. Klappentext Vikash Singh is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Montclair State University. Zusammenfassung The Kanwar is India's largest annual religious pilgrimage. Millions of participants gather sacred water from the Ganga and carry it across hundreds of miles to dispense as offerings in Siva shrines. These devotees-called bhola ! gullible or fools! and seen as miscreants by many Indians-are mostly young! destitute men! who have been left behind in the globalizing economy. But for these young men! the ordeal of the pilgrimage is no foolish pursuit! but a means to master their anxieties and attest their good faith in unfavorable social conditions. Vikash Singh walked with the pilgrims of the Kanwar procession! and with this book! he highlights how the procession offers a social space where participants can prove their talents! resolve! and moral worth. Working across social theory! phenomenology! Indian metaphysics! and psychoanalysis! Singh shows that the pilgrimage provides a place in which participants can simultaneously recreate and prepare for the poor! informal economy and inevitable social uncertainties. In identifying with Siva! who is both Master of the World and yet a pathetic drunkard! participants demonstrate their own sovereignty and desirability despite their stigmatized status. Uprising of the Fools shows how religion today is not a retreat into tradition! but an alternative forum for recognition and resistance within a rampant global neoliberalism. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction: Illegitimate Religion 1. Mastering Uncertainty: Performance and Recognition in Religion 2. "Everything is a Gift, Bhole": Custom and the Ethics of Care 3. Ominous Signs: Of Dread, Desires, and Determination 4. Damning Corpses: Violence, Religious or Secular? 5. Caste and the Informal Economy: Subversive Aesthetics of Popular Religion 6. Wishful Nightmares: Triumphant Neoliberalism and the Resistances of Religion 7. War, Nation, and the Human as a Thing ...
