Memory, Place and Nostalgia: Cosmopolitan Nostalgia and Sufism in America

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between memory, place and identity through nostalgic construction of mystic practices at a sufi dergah in New York. In doing so we are interested in examining the way nostalgia is implicated in modern and multicultural religious communities in the West. The findings of this study are derived from an ethnographic field observation and in-depth interviews conducted between January 2012 to April 2012 in New York, USA. Participants of this study included religious practitioners that attended and participated in the events at the Sufi dergah regularly while recognizing themselves as disciples of the Sufi order. In total, 15 participants were interviewed. Findings of this paper suggest modern nostalgics are not simply passive consumers of hegemonic narratives of memory and place. Rather they are active participants in the creation of common places that represent conjunction of multiple histories (Massey, 1995) and therefore, are both multilocal as well as multivocal (Sheldrake, 2001). Keywords: Memory, place, identity, nostalgia, sufism