Resisting Fluidity, Territorializing Practice
Resisting Fluidity, Territorializing Practice

Summary/Abstract: This paper focuses on an understanding of sacred shrines in South Asia. Predominant historical debates on religion in South Asia have situated sacred shrines through the polar lens of either ‘antagonism’ or ‘shared’ spaces. Both communalist and secular historiography have utilized these narrative tropes to assign meaning and decode ritual practice at sacred shrines. Historical debates on shrines are thus embroiled in the polarity of such ideological debates. This is despite the intrinsic fluidity of popular sacred spaces in South Asia. Paradoxically, it is this fluidity that has also been violently resisted in recent times. What kind of threat does fluid faith practices pose to expression of fundamentalist beliefs? These kinds of resistances offer us an opportunity to understand the worldview of fluid faiths, and the contours of ritual and bodily practices. Through select case studies, this paper attempts to situate popular Sufi shrines and demonstrates that despite continued resistance, fluid sacred shrines and practices continue to proliferate and offer a critical window to the ‘modern’ worldview of ‘great’ religious traditions.

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