""You have to come to my wedding," Kavita told me, turning to face me where I sat next to her on the couch. "You can come with the other people from the street. You will get everything you need for your *research* there." "I will come, I will come!" I replied enthusiastically. I had only met Kavita and her two younger sisters, Arthi and Deepti (see Figure 2.1), mere minutes before this invitation was extended. I had initially come to Pulan that day in October 2012 to meet another woman, Heena, whose family rents a room on the third story of Kavita's family's home. Heena and I had been sitting in the furniture refurbishing store she operates with her husband on the main street of Pulan when Deepti, Kavita's youngest sister, passed by. Heena introduced us and told me to go with Deepti to meet her family. When we reached the family's three-story house-the largest in the gali-Deepti led me past the empty rooms on the ground floor, which I would eventually begin renting, to the second-story living room. There, we found Kavita and Arthi organizing clothing and jewelry they had purchased earlier in the day for the upcoming wedding festivities. Kavita made room for me to sit next to her on the couch and began asking me about myself. I immediately warmed to her because of her open, friendly smile and sharp, staccato Hindi, which I delighted in being able to understand. I explained that I had come to India to study how women's lives are different in rural and urban areas, and Kavita assured me that she and her family could help. She noted that her parents had come to Udaipur from Ram Nagar, a large village thirty-five kilometers north of the city, and that the family would be returning for her and her older brother Krishna's weddings the following month. Their weddings would be held five days apart to help reduce the difficulties of family members traveling from outside Udaipur. Prompted by the description of my research, Kavita commented on differences that she recognized between the village and the city. The biggest difference, she suggested, was the experience of caste, namely that in the village, people from different jatis live separately, whereas in the city, people are "mixed." As I would come to learn when visiting Ram Nagar for various functions, there is a fair amount of caste and religious diversity in the village. Although spatial and ritual segregation was rather strictly maintained during religious observances, it is likely more flexible in everyday life. The segregation during ritual functions-the occasions for which Kavita also traveled to the village-likely informed her sense of a lack of "mixing" in the village as. The majority of residents in the area of Ram Nagar where the family maintains a home were also from the Mali (lit: gardener) jati, although Mali was not a majority jati in Pulan"--

This title explores the remarkable religious renaissance that has reformed, revitalized and renewed the practices of Buddhism and Daoism in Taiwan. Madsen connects these developments to Taiwan's transition to democracy and the burgeoning needs of its new middle classes.

This volume examines the discursive construction of the meanings and lifestyle practices of the middle class in the rapidly transforming economies of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, focusing on the social, political and cultural implications at local and global levels. While drawing a comparative analysis of what it means to be middle class in these different locations, the essays offer a connective understanding of the middle class phenomenon in emerging market economies and lay the groundwork for future research on emerging, transitional societies. The book addresses three key dimensions: the discursive creation of the middle class, the construction of the cultural identity through consumption practices and lifestyle choices, and the social, political and cultural consequences related to globalization and neoliberalism.

Within Western Buddhism, practitioners are often assumed to be white and middle-class. Based in ground-breaking empirical research, Cosmopolitan Dharma: Race, Sexuality, and Gender in British Buddhism explores the stories of Buddhists from minority communities, through a rich analysis of their lived experiences. Smith, Munt and Yip explore their various contestations of dominant white and heteronormative cultures in Western Buddhism. Using cosmopolitanism as the theoretical lens, Cosmopolitan Dharma argues convincingly that the Buddhist ethos of human interconnectivity needs to be further developed to truly embrace the ‘Other’ of different kinds (not least Western Buddhism’s own internal ‘Others’). Cosmopolitan Dharma, through Buddhists’ own narratives, explores how cultural politics from the ground up can offer a more inclusive philosophy and lived experience of spirituality.

Is religion an obstacle to the values of modernity? Popular and scholarly opinion says that it is. In a world gripped in a clash of civilizations, religious absolutism seems to threaten the modern virtues of tolerance, reason, and freedom. This collection of historical essays argues that this popular view--religion versus modernity--is used by the politically powerful to construct the religious as irrational and antimodern. The authors study how nationalists, state officials, missionaries, and scholars in the West and in the colonized world defined and redefined the relationship between the political and the religious --From publisher's description.

The past couple of decades have witnessed Buddhist communities both continuing the modernization of Buddhism and questioning some of its limitations. In this fascinating portrait of a rapidly changing religious landscape, Ann Gleig illuminates the aspirations and struggles of younger North American Buddhists during a period she identifies as a distinct stage in the assimilation of Buddhism to the West. She observes both the emergence of new innovative forms of deinstitutionalized Buddhism that blur the boundaries between the religious and secular, and a revalorization of traditional elements of Buddhism such as ethics and community that were discarded in the modernization process. Based on extensive ethnographic and textual research, the book ranges from mindfulness debates in the Vipassana network to the sex scandals in American Zen, while exploring issues around racial diversity and social justice, the impact of new technologies, and generational differences between baby boomer, Gen X, and millennial teachers.

"Like seeds on the wind, Buddhist teachings continue to reach new lands. This outstanding book brings to light, in rich detail, the current flowering of Buddhism in the West. Long a world religion, Buddhism is now a global one."—Kenneth Kraft, author of The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism "Westward Dharma deserves a place on the growing bookshelf of contemporary Buddhist studies. Prebish and Baumann broaden our horizons from North America to the wider Western world, exploring key aspects of Buddhism's most recent geographical and cultural expansion."—Paul David Numrich, coauthor of Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in America.