Environment and Behavior OnlineFirst, published on September 23, 2008 as doi:10.1177/0013916508320459 Environment and Behavior Volume XX Number X Month XXXX xx-xx © 2008 Sage Publications Religious Placemaking and 10.1177/0013916508320459 http://eab.sagepub.com hosted at Community Building in http://online.sagepub.com Diaspora Shampa Mazumdar Sanjoy Mazumdar University of California, Irvine Community and loss of community have received much scholarly attention, whereas community formation and placemaking have been less well studied. Similarly, several studies have documented the role of religion in the lives of new immigrants, but little has been written about religious placemaking and community formation. Through an empirical study of a new immigrant group—the Hindus of Southern California—this article shows how religious placemaking helped build community. It details three salient components, namely, place planning and organization, place design, and place rituals, and also how these helped form and sustain community. It describes some chal- lenges encountered and strategies used to negotiate, mitigate, or minimize them. In providing these delineations, it shows how religio loci and place nostalgia influenced and aided community building. Keywords: religion; placemaking; community; temple building Introduction Does religious placemaking help in community building for immigrants in diaspora? We begin by describing what the literature teaches us. Very little has been written about religious placemaking by immigrants, although there has been much writing on religion and the new immigrant, and on community but little on the physical aspects of place and community formation. Religion and the New Immigrant In recent years, there has been an increased interest in understanding the role of religion in the lives of immigrants (Carnes & Yang, 2004; Ebaugh & Authors’ Note: Please address correspondence to Sanjoy Mazumdar, School of Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-7075; e-mail:
[email protected].