Religions and Cultures Cluster

Religion & Culture in the Indian Ocean from the Eighteenth Century to the Present

"Religion, even more so than the idea of nation, proved adept at crossing seas."

- Sugata Bose, A Hundred Horizons:
The Indian Ocean in the Age of Global Empire
(2006, p. 195)

While world religions such as Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism all lay claim to universal truths, they must always be practiced in culturally specific contexts that are affected by a variety of particular environmental, economic, linguistic, social, cultural and political variables. Both ordinary devotees and religious virtuosi such as theologians, mystics, poets and ritual experts must adapt their religious practices to ever-changing local situations.

A certain tension between cosmopolitan universalism and local practice is intrinsic to the history of all world religions, but has in many cases been heightened during the modern period. The introduction of more efficient technologies of information, communication and transportation have collapsed the space-time barriers that once allowed local traditions to flourish, and have allowed particular interest groups within global communities to try to impose their interpretation of the religion on all.

The Religions and Cultures cluster will pursue a comparative, interdisciplinary and broadly humanistic approach to these processes within the geographically delimited region of the Indian Ocean.