Guest Is God Pilgrimage Tourism and Making Paradise in India
and backpackers, today's visitors now come from a wide range of social positions. To locals, though, Pushkar is more than just a gathering place for pilgrims and tourists: it is where Brahma, the creator god, made his home; it is where Hindus should feel blessed to stay, if only for a short time;
and it is where locals would feel lucky to be reborn, if only as a pigeon. In short, it is their paradise. But even paradise needs upkeep. In Guest is God, Drew Thomases uses ethnographic fieldwork to explore the massive enterprise of building heaven on earth. The articulation of sacred space necessarily works alongside economic changes brought on by tourism and globalization. Here the contours of what actually constitutes paradise are
redrawn by developments in, and the agents of, tourism. And as paradise is made and remade, people in Pushkar help to create a brand of Hindu religion that is tailored to its local surroundings while also engaging global ideas. The goal, then, becomes to show how religion and tourism can be mutually
constitutive.
| Publisher Name | Oxford University Press USA |
|---|---|
| Author Name | Hagendorf, Col |
| Format | Audio |
| Bisac Subject Major | REL |
| Language | NG |
| Isbn 10 | 0190883553 |
| Isbn 13 | 9780190883553 |
| Target Age Group | min:NA, max:NA |
| Dimensions | 00.93" H x 00.06" L x 20.00" W |
| Page Count | 228 |
Drew Thomases is Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department at San Diego State University. His work focuses on the anthropology of religion in North India--more specifically, Hindu pilgrimage and practice--though he is broadly interested in tourism, globalization, environmentalism, and
theoretical approaches to the study of religion.
