Studying race in the field of South Asian religions

Abstract

In this commentary, I discuss scholarship on race in study of religion in South Asia. Using my experiences in the field, I look at how and why studies on race are marginalized, dismissed, and/or misread. I argue that without a feminist analysis informed by women of color feminisms and queer of color critique, race scholarship will only continue to be marginalized and/or misread even as the field of South Asian religions tries to center race as an object of analysis. I foreground race and caste power as a way to critique how threads of power run through much of the field of South Asian religions and structures the ways in which scholarship on race is approached (or not). As Asian studies broadly and South Asian Studies specifically creates new avenues for scholarship on race, the study of religion in South Asia must examine how racism is institutionalized within the field.