Rémy Delage
Research Fellow
Institutional affiliation(s): CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research)
54 boulevard Raspail 75006 Paris - Office 711
Presentation
My work focuses on religious mobilities and circulations (pilgrimages, ritual and political processions, vernacular tourism) in the structuring of places and territories in India and Pakistan. For my dissertation, I concentrated on the role of a South Indian mass pilgrimage (Sabarimal, Kerala) in the structuring of local and regional space, but also on its circulatory dimension, as the pilgrimage is a significant experience of mobility. My fieldwork then moved from South India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu) to North India (Haridwar, Jaipur), then Pakistan (Sindh), while at the same time shifting from Hinduism to South Asian Islam, primarily Sufism and Shi’ism.
As a member of the Histoire et soufisme dans la vallée de l’Indus (2008-13) team, which is headed up by Michel Boivin, I have in particular participated in the Mission Interdisciplinaire Française du Sindh (MIFS), whose objective is to describe the evolution of a Sufi pilgrimage center (Sehwan Sharif) located in the Sindh region in southern Pakistan. In this context, I have taken an interest in the urban history of Sehwan, in the organization and deployment of ritual processions in the public space, in the importance of the pilgrimage in the structuring of the town conceived of as a crossroads of mobilities and a place of mediation where the relation to alterity is mediated. In parallel, Mathieu Claveyrolas and I co-chaired a research group (2010-13) centered on the interactions between religion and territory in South Asia, which resulted in the publication of a collaborative volume in the Puruṣārtha series (2016), entitled Religion and its Territories in South Asia and beyond: Traversing, Performing, Overstepping.
Since 2014, Thanuja Mummidi (anthropologist, Pondicherry University), Christophe Jalil Nordman (economist, IRD) and myself have put together an innovative pedagogical project, the Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry, an intensive and multidisciplinary training program teaching innovative theories, methods and tools for research in the Social Sciences (2014, 2016 and 2017). This cooperative project is the result of close cooperation between the Institut français de Pondichéry (IFP, UMIFRE 21, USR 3330), Pondicherry University, the CEIAS and the Laboratoire Développement, Institutions et Modialisations (DIAL, UMR 225, IRD, Paris-Dauphine).
A seminar for Master’s and PhD students will be proposed starting in 2017-18, entitled Mobilités, espace et circulation religieuses: réflexions interdisciplinaires. At the crossroads between the Social Sciences of space and of the religious, its main goal will be to clarify the theoretical, conceptual and methodological baggage implicit in considerations of the links between mobility and space. Several examples will be used, taken from Islam and Hinduism in the South Asian context, but also from beyond, in the diasporas and the broader Muslim world.
Research groups
2010-2013 | Co-coordinator, with Mathieu Claveyrolas of the team on “Territoires du religieux : échelles, circulations, réseaux”
2010-2013 | Member of the team on “Histoire et soufisme dans la vallée de l’Indus”
Responsibilities
2018... | Pedagogical director with Fabrizio Speziale of the Master in Asian Studies
2017… | Member of the teaching board (AMO Master’s)
2017 | Member of the academic committee (ECSAS)
2014-2017 | Co-organizer, with Christophe Jalil Nordman and Thanuja Mummidi, of the Social Sciences Winter School in Pondicherry
2014-16 | Co-administrator, with Christophe Jalil Nordman, of the research blog https://winterspy.hypotheses.org/
2011-2014 | Co-administrator, with Michel Boivin, of the research blog http://sindh.hypotheses.org/
2010-13 | Co-administrator, with Mathieu Claveyrolas and Pierre-Yves Trouillet, of the research blog http://teras.hypotheses.org/
2008-2011 | Co-editor, with Michel Boivin, of the Mission Interdisciplinaire Française du Sindh (MIFS) Newsletter
Key words
India, Pakistan, South Asia
Social, cultural and political geography
Social and spatial dynamics of religious practice
Mobility, space, religious circulations
Pilgrimage, migrations, tourism
Places of worship, holy places, places of commemoration
Religious circulations, locations and territories
Islam, Hinduism and religious minorities
Recording practices and sources of spatial information
Public policies and minorities
Fieldwork
Pakistan: Sindh, Sehwan Sharif, Indus Valley
India: Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Uttaranchal (Haridwar), Rajasthan (Jaipur)
Teaching
2017-18 | Mobilités, espace et circulation religieuses : réflexions interdisciplinaires, EHESS, Master’s program: Asie méridionale et orientale : terrains, textes et sciences sociales ; Sciences sociales des religions ; Territoires, espaces, sociétés ; Études comparatives du développement
Publications
Some articles can be accessed through the CEIAS open archive Hal-SHS
Books and journal issues
2016 | Claveyrolas, M. and Delage, R., eds, Religion and its Territories in South Asia and beyond: Traversing, Performing, Overstepping, Editions EHESS, Puruṣārtha series, 34, Paris, 344 p.
2016 | Boivin, M. and Delage, R., eds, Devotional Islam in Contemporary South Asia Shrines, Journeys and Wanderers, Routledge, London, 195 p.
2004 | Guilmoto, C.Z. et al., Mapping out Social Change in South India. A Geographic Information System and its Applications, Pondy Paper in Social Sciences, 31, French Institute, Pondicherry, 117 p.
Book chapters
2018 | « Sufism and the Pilgrimage Market: A Political Economy of a Shrine in Southern Pakistan », in Coleman S. and Eade J. (eds), Pilgrimage and Political Economy. Translating the Sacred, Berghahn, Ney York-Oxford, pp. 59-74.
2016 | “Soufisme et espace urbain. Circulations rituelles dans la localité de Sehwan Sharif,” in Claveyrolas, M. and Delage, R. (eds) Religion and its Territories in South Asia and beyond: Traversing, Performing, Overstepping, Editions EHESS, Puruṣārtha series, No. 34, Paris, pp. 149-175.
2016 | (with Mathieu Claveyrolas) “Introduction,” in Claveyrolas, M. and Delage, R. (eds) Religion and its Territories in South Asia and beyond: Traversing, Performing, Overstepping, Editions EHESS, Puruṣārtha series, No. 34, Paris, pp. 11-43.
2014 | (with Delphine Ortis) “Les relations entre Sehwan Sharif et l'Indus dans le Sindh : histoire d'une mise à distance (Pakistan),” in Harit Joshi and Anne Viguier (eds) Ville et fleuve en Asie du Sud. Regard croisés, Editions INALCO, Paris, pp. 33-47.
2010 | “Formation historique et re-territorialisations de la minorité musulmane indienne,” in M. Gilquin, (ed), Atlas des minorités musulmanes en Asie orientale et méridionale, Paris: Editions CNRS, pp. 25-45.
2010 | “Ethnographie d’une controverse. Processions rituelles et conflits de représentation de l’espace social au Kerala,” in L. Baixas, L. Dejouanet, P.-Y. Trouillet (eds), Conflit et rapports sociaux en Asie du Sud, Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 213-229.
2010 | “Le pèlerinage à Sabarimala en Inde du Sud. Circulation religieuse et redéfinition des frontières de l’identité géographique,” in Landy, F. & Dupont V. (eds) Circulation and Territory in Contempotary South Asia, Editions EHESS, ‘Purusartha’ series, No. 28, Paris, pp. 73-101.
2010 | “Pèlerinage,” in Frédéric Landy (ed) Dictionnaire de l’Inde contemporaine, Paris, Armand Colin, pp. 397-399.
2010 | “Formation historique et re-territorialisations de la minorité musulmane indienne,” in Gilquin, M. (ed.) Atlas des minorités musulmanes en Asie orientale et méridionale, Editions CNRS, Paris, pp. 25-45.
2005 | “From Fieldwork to Research Theory on an Indian Pilgrimage,” in Partridge C. & Geaves, R., (eds), Fieldwork in Religion, Equinox Publishing, London, vol. 1-2, pp. 105-121.
2004 | “Graphic Representations of the Sabarimala Pilgrimage (Kerala),” in Guilmoto, C.Z. et al, Mapping out Social Change in South India. A Geographic Information System and its Applications, Pondy Papers in Social Sciences, No. 31, French Institute of Pondicherry, Pondicherry, pp. 45-64.
Articles
2017 | « Le pèlerinage contemporain en sciences sociales : moments, bifurcations, nouveaux horizons », Archives de sciences sociales des religions, 180, pp. 155-168.
2016 | « L’espace du pèlerinage comme territoire circulatoire: Sehwan Sharif le long de l’Indus» Cahiers d’Outre-Mer, Special Issue Prier aux Suds: les lieux de culte entre territorialisations, cohabitations et mobilités du religieux, n° 275, pp. 77-102
2014 | “Muslim Castes in India,” Books and Ideas, 29 September 2014.
2011 | “Castes et musulmans,” La Vie des idées, 17 May 2011.
2010 | (with Michel Boivin) “Benazir en odeur de sainteté. Naissance d'un lieu de culte au Pakistan” Archives des Sciences Sociales des Religions, No. 151, Paris, Editions EHESS, pp. 189-211.
2006 | “L’Inde à l’épreuve du multiculturalisme : contextes et perspectives géographiques,” Géographie et cultures, No. 58, pp. 19-32.
Book reviews
2009 | “Alessandro Monsutti, Silvia Naef & Fabian Sabahi (eds), The Other Shiites. From the Mediterranean to Central Asia, Bern, Peter Lang, 2007,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la Méditerranée, No. 126,
2007 | “Emma Aubin Boltanski, Pèlerinage et nationalisme en Palestine. Prophètes, héros et ancêtres, Paris, Éditions de l’EHESS, 2007.” Institut de l’islam et des sociétés du monde musulman (IISMM).
Miscellaneous
2015 | “Winter School in Pondicherry: Methodological Approaches in Social Science,” CEIAS Newsletter, No. 10, Spring 2015.
2015 | (with Thanuja Mummidi and Christophe Jalil Nordman) “Editorial,” Pattrika. Bulletin of the French research Institutes in India, No. 43, IFP, 2015, p. 1.
2012 | (with Laurent Gayer) “Editorial: The CSH and Social Sciences Practices in Pakistan,” Pattrika, No. 37, CSH, New Delhi, p. 1.
2011 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 6, September 2011, 13 p.
2010 | “Spatial Trends and Social Change Among Religious Minorities in South Asia,” Pattrika, No. 34, CSH, New Delhi, p. 2.
2010 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 5, November 2010, 17 p.
2010 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 4, April 2010, 18 p.
2009 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 3, September 2009, 14 p.
2009 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 2, January 2009, 14 p.
2008 | (with Michel Boivin) MIFS Newsletter No. 1, January 2008, 11 p.
Last update: 11 October 2018 (NG)
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