Rethinking Diaspora in the American Hindu Landscape: The Translocal Śaktiscape of the Hindu Goddess in Pontiac, Michigan

Abstract: The omnipresence of the diaspora frame in naming forms of Hinduism that arise and perdure outside of India often functions to erase the uniqueness and creativity that mark many Hindu and Hindu-influenced spaces, communities, and practices worldwide. This article aims to interrogate and unsettle the ubiquitous deployment of the term diaspora, drawing on the author’s experience with one particular Hindu community. The article suggests a need for more nuanced and layered frames of analysis in thinking about not just this community, but also a broad range of Hindu practices and institutions that exist worldwide. Many Hindu institutions and forms of practice that emerge outside of India are not just iterative but also deeply creative, existing in dynamic tension with both Indian Hindu traditions and the non-Indian worlds in which they are suspended. This article calls us to push our understanding of the complexities and diversities of diaspora Hinduism by invoking more layered and complex frames of analysis and interpretation beyond the diaspora frame.