Religion, Place and Modernity

Michael Dickhardt is a Senior Researcher at the research network “Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia”, Georg-August-University Göttingen. His current research is focused on the entanglement of religion and modernity in religious places of the Ancient Quarter of Hanoi, Vietnam. Andrea Lauser is Professor of Anthropology in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Georg-August-University Göttingen. Her doctoral and post-doctoral research has focused on Southeast Asia, with a special focus on power, gender, and generation among the Mangyan of Mindoro, the Philippines, and on Filipino transnational marriage migration. From 2011 to 2015 she was the spokesperson for the research network on the dynamics of religion in Southeast Asia (www.dorisea.net). She co-edited the recent volume Engaging the Spirit World. Popular Beliefs and Practices in Modern Southeast Asia Oxford, New York (2011).

• Preface and Acknowledgements viiList of Figures and Tables ixAbout the Authors xi1 Religion, Place and Modernity in Southeast and East Asia: Reflections on the Spatial Articulation of Religion with Modernity 1Michael DickhardtPart 1: Spatialization of Concepts and Agendas of Modernization2 Civilization, Progress, and the ‘Foul Stench of Religion’: The Concepts of ‘Religion’ and ‘Superstition’ in the Politics of Modern East Asia 37Nikolas Broy3 Religious Pluralism as a Modern Political Project: The Relevance of Space in Contemporary India, Indonesia, and Singapore 69Clemens Six4 Religious Place Making: Civilized Modernity and the Spread of Buddhism among the Cheng, a Mon-Khmer Minority in Southern Laos 95Patrice Ladwig5 Constructing Modern Zen Spaces in Vietnam 125 Alexander SoucyPart 2: Sacralization of Places and Spaces in Contexts of Modern Pluralism and Fragmentations6 Pilgrimage between Religious Resurgence, Cultural Nationalism and Touristic Heritage in Contemporary Vietnam 149Andrea Lauser7 Religious Praxis, Modernity and Non-modernity in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 184Yeoh Seng-Guan8 In Search of Holy Water: Hindu Pilgrimage to Gunung Rinjani on Lombok, Indonesia, as a Multi-religious Site 205Volker GottowikPart 3: Giving Space to Religion within Spaces of Modernity9 New Routes for the Venerable Ancestor: A Growth Triangle, the Border, and an Emergent Sacred Landscape in the Thai-Malay Borderland 247Jovan Maud10 Vision and Religious Space under Transformation in the Perception of the Nineteenth-century Siamese Elites 270Sing Suwannakij11 The ‘Ghost Room’: Space, Death and Ritual in Vietnam 290Paul Sorrentino12 Where to Die in Hong Kong?: Death Management and the Politics of Death Space in Hong Kong 312Chan Yuk WahIndex