Ritual & Recognition: Religious Participation and Social Capital in South India

Elly Power (Anthropology)

Lunch will be provided.

Abstract

In rural South India, religious rituals can often be quite dramatic: devotees pierce their skin with spears, walk across hot coals, and become possessed by the deity. Drawing on social network data, I will delineate some the consequences of such costly ritual action, looking at how the nature of people’s religious participation influences their reputational standing and their social capital. These findings harken back to the foundational sociological works of Durkheim and Turner, but also have relevance for the burgeoning work on the evolutionary foundations of religion.

Bio

Elly is a PhD candidate in the anthropology department here at Stanford. She holds a MSc from University College London, and a BA from Brown University.