Abstrakt
This paper explores the role of sacred natural sites in mobilising communities in India that claim an indigenous identity. How sacred natural sites are constructed as sites of protest against cultural marginalisation, female disempowerment and mainstream development are questions that have been explored via a few selected case studies.
The paper brings insights from the field of cultural geography, in particular studies of the poetics and politics of sacred spaces, to answer anthropological questions related to the politics of indigenous mobilisations in India. In each of the case studies, questions of cultural revivalism in relation to the veneration of sacred natural sites come very much to the fore.
The study adds to anthropological scholarship on fourth world cultural revivals and contributes to a greater understanding of the operation of strategic essentialism as described by Gayatri Spivak.