Jugaad Authorities

Hyperlocal Peers and Trajectories of Vernacular Power in Contemporary Delhi

Authors

  • Ronie Parciack Tel Aviv University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.23305

Keywords:

Sufism, vernacular Islam, jugaad authority, India, transmission lineages, consumerism

Abstract

This article analyses the figures of four contemporary Sufi peers who have established a formally unrecognized yet authoritative position despite their lack of ties to established Sufi transmission lineages or access to either symbolic or concrete capital. These peers operate in the lower strata of Delhi’s urban society, in ‘economies of despair’, composed of concentric circles of unfavourable life circumstances, limited resources, under-recognition and the deepening communal divide. Through a methodological combination of ethnography, participatory observation and textual analysis I examine their life trajectories to better understand the ways in which hyperlocal peers craft jugaad (improvised) authorities; the issue of space—the aspiration to exert power over a shrine and the transformation of the space, in some cases, from concrete to virtual. Finally, I address the transformations in peeri-mureedi relations in the neoliberal era through the prism of the consumer society.

Author Biography

  • Ronie Parciack, Tel Aviv University

    Ronie Parciack (ORCID: 0000-0002-0544-292X) is a faculty member at the Department of East Asian Studies of Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include the vernacular planes of political theology in India, Sufism and the aesthetics of Indo-Islamic visual culture. She has published in refereed journals and anthologies, and co-edited a special issue of South Asian Popular Culture on terror and media. Her singly authored monographs are Hindi Popular Cinema: Aesthetic Formations of the Seen and Unseen (Routledge, 2016) and Celestial Delhi: Anthropological Gazes at a Mega-Polis in Transition (HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, 2019).

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Published

2022-07-22

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Parciack, R. (2022). Jugaad Authorities: Hyperlocal Peers and Trajectories of Vernacular Power in Contemporary Delhi. Religions of South Asia, 16(1), 42–65. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.23305