Proquest Dissertations
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
u Ottawa L'Universite canadienne Canada's university nm FACULTE DES ETUDES SUPERIEURES L=l FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND ET POSTOCTORALES U Ottawa POSDOCTORAL STUDIES L'Universit^ canadienne Canada's university Janet Elizabeth Gunn "MWRDEIATHESETXUTHORWTHESIS"" Ph.D. (Religious Studies) GRADETDEGREE Department of Classics and Religious Studies FACULTE, ECOLE, DEPARTEMENT / FACULTY, SCHOOL, DEPARTMENT Hindu Women, Lived Religion, and the Performance of Gendered Narratives: Canadian Examples TITRE DE LA THESE / TITLE OF THESIS Anne Vallely DIRECTEUR (DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS SUPERVISOR CO-DIRECTEUR (CO-DIRECTRICE) DE LA THESE / THESIS CO-SUPERVISOR Lori Beaman Peter Beaman Richard Mann Leslie Orr (Concordia University) Gary W. Slater Le Doyen de la Faculte des etudes superieures et postdoctorales / Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies Hindu Women, Lived Religion, and the Performance of Gendered Narratives: Canadian Examples Janet E. Gunn Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies Department of Classics and Religious Studies Faculty of Arts University of Ottawa ©Janet E. Gunn, Toronto, Canada, 2010 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington OttawaONK1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre inference ISBN: 978-0-494-65584-9 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-65584-9 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extraits substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Table of Contents List of Figures IV List of Tables v Abstract vi Acknowledgements viii Chapter One: Introduction Aims of the Study 1 Structure of the Study 31 Chapter Two: Interpreting Gendered Performances of Religious Narratives Project Scale and Findings 33 Reflections on Method: Context and Perspective 53 Theoretical Framework 68 Embodiment 70 Narrative, Relationship, and Identity 74 Gender 97 Ritual Innovation 107 Chapter Three: Hinduism in Canada: Temples and Households Canada as Hindu Diaspora 117 Three Canadian Hindu Temples 138 Beyond the Reaches of the Temple 151 Chapter Four: Narrating the Hindu Self: Canadian Examples 167 Participant Narratives 170 Contextualizing the Findings 220 Chapter Five: Duty and Desire: Conclusions 233 Limitations and Future Research Possibilities 236 Appendices A: Temple Use Guidelines, Hindu Temple of Ottawa Carleton 240 B: Highlights of Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir website homepage 243 C: Vishva Shakti Durga /Wancf/'rWikipedia Page 244 D: Lakshmi Mandir, Missisauga, Website Information 246 E: Interview Guide 247 F: Research Questions 250 Bibliography 252 List of Figures Figu re 1 Sunday Archana, Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir Figu re 2 Prema's home shrine Figu re 3 Prema's home shrine, detail Figu re 4 Prema's home shrine, detail Figu re 5 Hindu Temple of Ottawa Carleton (exterior) Figu re 6 Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir (exterior) Figu re 7 Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir (exterior) Figu re 8 Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir (interior) Figu re 9 Pandit Ravindra Narain Panday Ji performing puja Figu re 10 Women Worshipping at Vishva Shakti Durga Mandir Figu re 11 Lakshmi Mandir, exterior of old building Figu re 12 Lakshmi Mandir, temporary strip mall location Figu re 13 Lakshmi Mandir, new building under construction Figu re 14 Kalpana's basement shrine Figu re 15 Kalpana's basement shrine Figu re 16 Basement shrine, detail Figu re 17 Kalpana's kitchen shrine Figu re 18 Savita's cupboard shrine Figu re 19 Savita's cupboard shrine, detail Figu re 20 Savita's cupboard shrine, detail Figu re 21 Savita's cupboard shrine, detail Figu re 22 Kala's home shrine Figu re 23 Kala's home shrine Figu re 24 Rashmila's bedroom shrine Figu re 25 Rashmila's bedroom shrine, detail List of Tables page Table A: Respondent Profiles, alphabetically by pseudonym 34 Table B: Research Findings Summary 37 Table C: Hindu Population by Major Canadian Cities 123 Abstract The lived religious experiences of Hindu women, and the interpretations of these that they bring to bear on their own lives and those of their children in diaspora, have largely been overlooked in the study of Hinduism, resulting in a significant lack in our understanding of the lived religious experience of Hindus. This dissertation responds to that lack by paying attention to women's daily embodiment of religious narratives in Canada. I investigate participants' household devotional activity in dialogue with their experiences of temple worship, all with a view to revealing performances of religious narrative in quotidian diasporic experience. Hindu women's daily interactions with the Divine are presented as a site of dialogue between orthodox norms and the imaginative, creative element inherent in the lived experience of religion. It is shown that women's devotional lives are a key site for the articulation of daily, experiential Hinduism in which individual actors, while constructed by culture in their role as appropriately devout wives, mothers and daughters, operate within a field pregnant with the potential for active constructions of culture. The study reveals three primary conclusions: 1. The performance of religious narratives is an important part of the majority of participants' lives in Canada. 2. Religious narratives of auspicious womanhood, while considered important, are flexibly interpreted and deployed by participants. VI 3. The desire to provide children with a rootedness in tradition does not correlate to the desire that one's daughters embody that tradition. The majority of research participants are (or were) concerned to educate their children about Hindu religious narratives, but are not concerned that children continue traditional practices in their own lives unless they wish to do so. Troubled by the characterization of women's religious practices as both marginalized and marginalizing, and unsatisfied by the generalization that in adhering to religious roles Hindu women are mute subjects of patriarchy, this study shows that women's engagements with tradition are spaces of dialogue; generative loci of multiple and significant meanings for themselves, for their families, and for the Indo-Canadian Hindu community. This elastic process of meaning-making need not be interpreted as subversive of tradition, but is more fruitfully presented as constitutive of the religious life-worlds of Hindus. VII Acknowledgements "Whence this creation has arisen - perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he does not know" (Rg Veda 10.129) I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the University of Ottawa, whose generous funding has made this research possible. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the women who so graciously welcomed me into their worlds of meaning. These are your stories, your creations, and it is your astonishing creativity and intelligence that makes them worth recounting. Many thanks to my academic mentors, whose feedback and support have been invaluable throughout this process. Special thanks are due to my thesis advisor Anne Vallely, as well as to Paul Younger, Corinne Dempsey, and Karen Pechilis for their ongoing interest in this project and for the examples set by their own work. John Cove has been both an academic mentor and a good friend throughout this process - hey, Jimmy. Thank you so much, mom and dad, for your unflagging support. You have both been with me throughout this process in very important ways. And finally, without Scott Clark's enthusiasm and confidence in me, this project would never have begun. Without his encouragement and feedback it never would have been completed. Scott, thank you beyond the sky and earth. viii 1 Chapter One Introduction "You who lift mountains, I have some light. I want to mingle it with yours." (Mirabai) "A specific identity has meaning only in relation to other identities" (Langellier and Peterson, 2004: 127). Aims of the Study Theorists (e.g. de Certeau 1984) have argued that everyday life is where we can see the actual production and transformation of structures and cultures..., [that] generalizing analyses and abstract theories tend to 'freeze' or 'freeze-frame' culture, as well as places and concepts. ...But culture is not a frozen set of rules that people merely enact. Nor do all peoples in a culture abide by the same cultural principles or concepts: the activity of people is heterogeneous, contentious, emotionally charged, and often surprising (see Bakhtin 1981).