Healing Temples, the Anti-Superstition Discourse and Global Mental Health: Some Questions from Mahanubhav Temples in India

Ranganathan, Shubha (2014) Healing Temples, the Anti-Superstition Discourse and Global Mental Health: Some Questions from Mahanubhav Temples in India. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. pp. 1-13. ISSN 0085-6401 (In Press)

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Abstract

The recent murder of anti-superstition crusader Narendra Dabholkar highlighted competing discourses on the place of local healing shrines in contemporary India. While healing shrines are dismissed as regressive and exploitative sites by the rationalist movement, mental health discourses seek to either abolish them or utilise them in community psychiatry initiatives. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Mahanubhav temples in western India, this paper argues that healing shrines are better seen as spaces of refuge for those in distress. Such a position moves away from the rationalist perspective, while also questioning the incorporation of such shrines in the (global) mental health agenda.

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IITH Creators:	IITH Creators ORCiD Ranganathan, Shubha http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6954-2727
Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Healing shrines; Mahanubhav temples; anti-superstition; rationalist; Global Mental Health (GMH); psychiatry; spirit possession; trance
Subjects:	Social sciences > Asian Studies
Divisions:	Department of Liberal Arts
Depositing User:	Users 3 not found.
Date Deposited:	28 Oct 2014 07:09
Last Modified:	10 May 2018 11:41
URI:	http://raiithold.iith.ac.in/id/eprint/473
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1080/00856401.2014.961628
OA policy:	http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/0085-6401/
Related URLs:	Google Scholar

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