Papers by Kathinka Frøystad
Anthropos, 2023
Review of Hüsken, Ute, Vasudha Narayanan, and Astrid Zotter
(eds): Nine Nights of Power. Durgā, D... more Review of Hüsken, Ute, Vasudha Narayanan, and Astrid Zotter
(eds): Nine Nights of Power. Durgā, Dolls, and
Darbārs. Albany: State University of New York Press,
2021.
Margo Kitts (ed): The Cambridge Companion to Religion and War, 2023
PORTAL Journal of Multidiscpilinary International Studies, 2022
In spite of Modi's promise of good days (acche din) in 2014, many Indians still struggle with une... more In spite of Modi's promise of good days (acche din) in 2014, many Indians still struggle with unemployment, low income, poor health and other difficulties. Though some problems eventually find solutions and middle-class metropolitans increasingly seek help from gurus and psychologists, long-term misfortune and disturbances are still frequently attributed to black magic or possession. Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Kanpur and Bareilly, this article examines the unintended cosmopolitan effects of such practices, which occasionally unfold in ways that traverse and unsettle official religious boundaries, even in polarized times. Heuristically contrasting Modi to Alice in Wonderland, the article spells out the double bind of many low-income Hindus who seek supernatural assistance in times of crisis: should they follow the logic of inexpensive efficacy, even if necessitating engagement with unfamiliar ritual worlds in heterotopic spaces associated with the religious other? Or should they rather follow the emergent Hindu nationalist logic of Hindu DECLARATION OF CONFLICTING INTEREST The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Control: Attempting to Tame the World, edited by Gro Ween and Michael Lundblad, 2022
Who would have thought that the docile Indian cow could be the focal point of so much conflict? A... more Who would have thought that the docile Indian cow could be the focal point of so much conflict? Across the world, the first-and sometimes only-thing we learn about Indian cows is that they are "holy". Granted, many Indians revere cows so deeply that they bestow them with divine motherly qualities. But others would rather make beef curry out of them and use their hide for belts, shoes and bags. So the story of the hump-backed Indian cow-formally known as the Zebu cow
Religions, 2021
Since 2013, India has seen a remarkable growth of a conspiracy theory known as “love jihad”, whic... more Since 2013, India has seen a remarkable growth of a conspiracy theory known as “love jihad”, which holds that Muslim men conspire to lure Hindu women for marriage to alter India’s religious demography as part of a political takeover strategy. While earlier scholarship on “love jihad” emphasizes the Hindu nationalist propagation of this conspiracy theory, this article pays equal attention to its appeal among conservative Hindus. Making its point of departure in the generative effects of speech, it argues that the “love jihad” neologism performs two logical operations simultaneously. Firstly, it fuses the long-standing Hindu anxiety about daughters marrying against their parents’ will, with the equally long-standing anxiety about unfavorable religious demographic trends. Secondly, it attributes a sinister political takeover intent to every Muslim man who casts his eyes on a young Hindu woman. To bring out these points, this article pays equal empirical attention to marriage and kinship practices as to the genealogy of, and forerunners to, the “love jihad” neologism, and develops the concept of “sound biting” to bring out its meaning-making effect.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Approaching Religion, 2021
T he religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hindu India were manifold and, at times, pub... more T he religious responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Hindu India were manifold and, at times, publicly contested, which raises the question of which societal differences became visible and were augmented as the pandemic unfolded. Based on observations mainly from the first coronavirus wave in 2020, this article argues that the limited religious innovation that ensued gave rise to a lively public debate that revealed marked differences within the Hindu community, that the pandemic offered new possibilities for affirming Hindu identities while othering Muslims, and that it accelerated the transition to online religious services in prominent temples while pausing the activities in others, thus augmenting a marked digital divide that may well outlast the pandemic. Pandemic religious changes notwithstanding, the article concludes that most of the changes were ephemeral and produced minor jolts rather than major transformations.
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 2021
This article considers the non-aggressive aftermath of an alleged iconoclasm in a residential nei... more This article considers the non-aggressive aftermath of an alleged iconoclasm in a residential neighbourhood of Kanpur. The 'iconoclasts' were recent converts to Christianity who were attempting to mark their departure from Hinduism by dismantling the deity tiles on their house. Despite the indignation this caused among their Hindu neighbours, not much ensued. While the lack of escalation may be easy to explain given the local circumstances, this article pays particular attention to how the anger of the denouncer subsided and the role of her growing knowledge about Christianity therein.
South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, Jun 2021
In this introduction, we situate the special section, ‘Containing Religious Offence beyond the Co... more In this introduction, we situate the special section, ‘Containing Religious Offence beyond the Courts’, within and beyond existing scholarship on religious offence in South Asia. Much of this scholarship focuses on the unintended effects of blasphemy laws, showing, for instance, that laws presumably intended to promote religious tolerance end up informing, if not encouraging, disputes around religious sensitivities. But while debates about the effects of law are crucial, we suggest that a more nuanced understanding of religious offence can be gained if we look past full-blown legal proceedings and the spectacular violence performed in the streets during religious offence controversies. This collection, then, directs attention to the friction around religious sensitivities that are handled and often mitigated locally—either entirely outside the courts or through bottom-up initiatives that unfold in combination with, or as a reaction to, top-down measures. Drawing on the extensive empirical field research of six scholars of religion and politics, these essays document existing containment modalities in diverse geographical and socio-religious settings in India and critically scrutinise their functioning and outcomes. They explicitly engage with critical understandings of peace and with scholarship on the micro-mechanism of coexistence and, in so doing, open up new avenues of enquiry about religious offence.
István Keul (ed): Spaces of Religion in Urban South Asia. London: Routledge, 2021
Outrage: The Rise of Religious Offence in Contemporary South Asia, 2019
This article traces the trajectory of the Hindu nationalist imagination of the Kaaba in Mecca as ... more This article traces the trajectory of the Hindu nationalist imagination of the Kaaba in Mecca as an ancient Shiva temple. It argues that, though the narrative is old, it was the transition from text to digital images that resulted in violent offence controversies in India and Bangladesh. The entire book is Open Access at
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123481
Torkel Brekke (ed): Modern HInduism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019
Book chapter discusses the boom of New Age-inspired spiritual movements amongst the urban middle ... more Book chapter discusses the boom of New Age-inspired spiritual movements amongst the urban middle classes in India in the 1990s and early 2000s.
In Alf Gunvald Nilsen, Kenneth Bo Nielsen and Anand Vaidya (eds): Indian Democracy: Origins, Trajectories, Contestations, published by Pluto Press, 2019
How do interfaith relations articulate with the democratic ideal of securing development and brig... more How do interfaith relations articulate with the democratic ideal of securing development and brighter futures for all? Rather than reducing religion to a variable for various development indicators, I pursue this question through the topic of anxiety. Despite the countless reports that document a steady decline in interfaith relations, a research project I have been leading since 2014 suggests that ritual engagement across “official” religious boundaries remains surprisingly common, though increasingly conducted in secrecy. The growing expectation to stick to the ritual repertoire that conforms with one’s religious identity is thus counteracted by the existential and economic anxiety that motivates experimentation in search for divine intervention. The chapter is primarily exemplified with ethnographic observations from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, and raises the uncomfortable question of whether India’s multireligious fabric would be further jeopardized if the country ever succeeds with its ambition to provide development, social equality and secure future prospects to the entire population.
This article reexamines the long-standing corridor topic of toilet facilities in anthropo-logical... more This article reexamines the long-standing corridor topic of toilet facilities in anthropo-logical fieldwork, arguing that their condition has stronger methodological implications than previously acknowledged. Drawing on personal experiences from three successive fieldworks in one of India's poorest states – Uttar Pradesh – it reflects on the importance of gender, age, and prior experience with unfamiliar sanitary facilities in shaping our adjustment to the conditions we meet in the field. It narrates the three 'toilet tests' to which the author has been exposed over a series of field visits: the transition to water, squatting, and ultimately the lack of privacy. Failing the latter, she had to shelve a promising fieldwork lead. Scaling up, the article suggests that, if field sites with 'difficult' toilet conditions attract fewer and differently positioned anthropologists, the result is likely to be a bias in coverage and theory-building that merits more reflection.
This book chapter criticizes the tendency of anchoring the alter-political imagination of alterna... more This book chapter criticizes the tendency of anchoring the alter-political imagination of alternative futures in studies of radical alterity of the kind favored by a vocal section of the ontological turn. Frøystad argues that their tendency to analyze cosmologies, religions and “worlds” as distinct and contrasting carries an uncanny Abrahamic echo besides feeding into a lethal politics of difference. Drawing on ethnography from a
multi-faith neighborhood in the North-Indian city of Kanpur, she argues that it is equally relevant to look for “osmotic worlding” as for “different worlds”. This implies that to develop an alterpolitical project of rethinking religious plurality, the first step must be to dismantle
the very idea of radical alterity.
Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions, 2011
... Uncle Khanna, as I respectfully addressed the elderly man, identified himself as a member of ... more ... Uncle Khanna, as I respectfully addressed the elderly man, identified himself as a member of Arya Samaj, a late-nineteenth-century Hindu reform movement that rejected image worship and caste. ... True enough, Uncle Khanna had gotten it from his nephew. ...
Published in
Arild Engelsen Ruud & Geir Heierstad (eds):
India’s democracies: Diversity, Co-optat... more Published in
Arild Engelsen Ruud & Geir Heierstad (eds):
India’s democracies: Diversity, Co-optation, Resistance
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2016
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission.
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Papers by Kathinka Frøystad
(eds): Nine Nights of Power. Durgā, Dolls, and
Darbārs. Albany: State University of New York Press,
2021.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123481
multi-faith neighborhood in the North-Indian city of Kanpur, she argues that it is equally relevant to look for “osmotic worlding” as for “different worlds”. This implies that to develop an alterpolitical project of rethinking religious plurality, the first step must be to dismantle
the very idea of radical alterity.
Arild Engelsen Ruud & Geir Heierstad (eds):
India’s democracies: Diversity, Co-optation, Resistance
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2016
(eds): Nine Nights of Power. Durgā, Dolls, and
Darbārs. Albany: State University of New York Press,
2021.
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123481
multi-faith neighborhood in the North-Indian city of Kanpur, she argues that it is equally relevant to look for “osmotic worlding” as for “different worlds”. This implies that to develop an alterpolitical project of rethinking religious plurality, the first step must be to dismantle
the very idea of radical alterity.
Arild Engelsen Ruud & Geir Heierstad (eds):
India’s democracies: Diversity, Co-optation, Resistance
Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2016
https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/123481