Imagining Religious Communities

A superlative example of Geertzian thick description, Saunders's project represents a noteworthy shift in the paradigms used to interpret transnational religious communities. It is particularly recommended to those interested in the evolution of modern religion in both the USA and in India. * Aditya N. Bhattacharjee, International Journal of Hindu Studies *
Saunders's book carefully and thoughtfully details the often unrecognized ways that immigrant Hindu families in the US perform and share their religiosities through the intimacy of everyday living and speaking. In doing so, her book reminds scholars that if we ignore the everyday, domestic lives of immigrants, which she has taken so much care to unearth and articulate, then we fail to see and understand much about American religion. * Ashlee Andrews, American Religion *
Imagining Religious Communties is a pioneering study of how some members of the first generation of Hindu immigrants to the United States re-invented their ritual traditions in order to develop new religious communities for themselves and their neighbors. By enabling these now-aging immigrants to speak for themselves, Jennifer Saunders provides a model for how the discipline of Religous Studies can help us understand the important place religion has in defining community. * Paul Younger, author of New Homelands: Hindu Communities in Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Fiji and East Africa *
In the study of transnational flows, the grand survey predominates. What Saunders exquisitely demonstrates in this book is the overlooked value of attending closely to how global social dynamics manifest themselves in and are shaped by the narrative performances of specific individuals and their extended family networks. Through perceptive, multi-sited, ethnographic description, Saunders excavates the role that religion -- itself always in a state of becoming -- plays in processes of transnational cultural identify formation. * Chad Bauman, author of Pentecostals, Proselytization, and Anti-Christian Violence in Contemporary India *
An intimate study of religion-infused global networks, where micro-analyses give way to macro-perspectives. Working closely with a single family whose members are spread across the planet, Saunders deftly demonstrates how personal narratives create social realities that reflect and connect disparate worlds. This book brings the transnational down to earth, with real people giving it shape, one family and one story at a time. * Corinne Dempsey, author of The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York: Breaking Convention and Making Home at a North American Hindu Temple *