Of Gods, Gifts and Ghosts: Spiritual Places in Urban Spaces

Description

How do individuals inscribe their spiritual identities and diasporic ethnicities in the city? Through a series of sociological and photographic essays, Terence Heng maps the various rituals, collectives, individuals and events that characterise Chinese religion practices in Singapore. From spirit mediums to the Hungry Ghost Festival, each chapter engages with the social, the spatial and the ephemeral, and in so doing it will explore the significance and relevance of Chinese religion in a secular nation-state; reveal the strategies and tactics used by diasporic individuals to perform and retain their identities; uncover the importance of flow and fluidity in the making of sacred space; and evidence the value and efficacy of the use of photographs in social research. Of Gods, Gifts and Ghosts is a ground-breaking exploration into the intersections between visual sociology, cultural geography and creative photographic practice. A visual monograph that gives equal importance to image and text, it interrogates the tensions between sacred and profane, official and unofficial, state and individual, physical and spiritual, peeling away the myriad layers of the spiritual imagination. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Figures 1. Introduction Introduction Chinese religion is not Chinese religion Sacred space and/vs state space Sacred space is imagination and materiality intertwined Sacred space in Chinese religion is highly visual The state and sacred space The visual essay in the social sciences Making a visual monograph - theory and practice Contributions Note 2. Visualising the (spiritual) city Introduction 3. The social dead, the agentic spirit Introduction 4. The Hungry Ghost Festival and aesthetic juxtaposition Introduction 5. Tang-ki as embodied spiritual capital and arbiters of sacred space Introduction Note 6. Intimate sacred spaces - the body and home Introduction Body Intimate spaces 7. The ebb and flow of sacred spaces Introduction 8. Movement and motion in sacred flowscapes Introduction 9. Conclusion Introduction Sacred flowscapes and the spiritual imagination Sacred flowscapes, diasporic identities and the state Some exploratory questions on writing the visual monograph Towards a lyrical-visual sociology?1 Note Epilogue References Index