Article ID: CBB645827726

Religious Ritual in a Scientific Space: Festival Participation and the Integration of Outsiders (2019)

unapi

An ethnographic approach to the South Indian festival Ayudha Puja reveals that the celebration plays a role in the construction of scientific communities. Ayudha Puja has the ability to absorb westerners, non-Hindus, and non-Brahmins into Indian science and engineering communities and is thus widely practiced in South Indian industry and academia. The practice of Ayudha Puja thus parallels what M. N. Srinivas labels “Sanskritization.” Within India, the process of Sanskritization refers to the adoption of high-caste habits and diet by upwardly mobile lower-caste communities. While not actually an example of Sanskritization, participation in Ayudha Puja is analogous to that process: by joining a Hindu rite within the scientific and professional workspace, outsiders become part of local laboratory, department, or office culture. Such practices reveal the need for scholars to investigate scientific community building outside the domain of how scientists reveal new facts about the world.

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Authors & Contributors
Renny Thomas
Caterina Guenzi
Joanne P. Waghorne
Daniel Cheifer
Thomas, Renny
Subramaniam, Banu
Concepts
Science and religion
Hinduism
India, civilization and culture
Ethnography
Astronomy
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Time Periods
Ancient
Medieval
21st century
20th century
Early modern
Modern
Places
India
South Asia
Sri Lanka
Japan
China
Asia
Institutions
Taj Mahal
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
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