Guest Lecture with Dr. Patrick Eisenlohr

Twelver Shia Muslims’ media practices and the right to the city in Mumbai

In this talk, Dr. Eisenlohr examines media practices and their links to public religious performances among Twelver Shia Muslims in Mumbai. He argues that such practices produce intertwined claims of belonging on multiple levels. Public religious performances and their mediatic reproductions, particularly their sonic and movement-related dimensions, establish certain neighborhoods of the city as specifically “Shia.” They thus seek to underline the long-standing presence of Twelver Shia Muslims in the city in an environment characterized not only by long histories of communalism but also ever-increasing intra-Islamic sectarianism. Closely related to such claims are a local Shia media center’s public campaigns to portray Shia Muslims as ideal Indian citizens, and through the tragedy of Karbala as the “worlds first victims of terrorism.” Twelver Shia public performances and media practices also feature the in creation and reproduction of transregional links to key sites of Shia religious authority and pilgrimage. Shia Muslims thereby seek to counter their marginalization in the city and the nation, while producing transnational and transregional geographies as alternative sources of belonging and recognition. 

Please join us in Auditorium 2!