{"id":163,"date":"2024-08-02T12:37:28","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T10:37:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bcdss-recette.mazedia.fr\/?p=163"},"modified":"2024-10-21T16:35:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T14:35:16","slug":"giving-clothes-contestations-of-socio-religious-hegemony-and-the-charitable-distribution-of-used-clothing-in-guyana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/giving-clothes-contestations-of-socio-religious-hegemony-and-the-charitable-distribution-of-used-clothing-in-guyana\/","title":{"rendered":"Giving Clothes: Contestations of Socio-religious Hegemony and the Charitable Distribution of Used Clothing in Guyana"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sinah Klo\u00df
BCDSS Research Group Leader <\/h4>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The distribution of (used) clothing can influence socio-religious hierarchies and challenge established power structures. Hindus in Guyana associated the charitable distribution of clothing with Christian missions and Christian attempts at conversion. As a countermeasure, they organized their own distributions and actively claimed the position of the giving and charitable group.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my anthropological fieldwork in Guyana in the early 2010s, many Hindus related charitable clothing distributions exclusively to Christian missions and Christian attempts of converting Hindus. Indeed, in the past, only Christians were in the position to conduct such distributions due to their links to colonial powers. The continuing transnational migration of Guyanese Hindus to North America since the 1960s has provided some Guyanese with the means to collect new and used clothing in their diasporic settings and ship them to Guyana, where they are redistributed among \u201cthe poor and needy\u201d. For example in 2015, some Guyanese migrants based in Florida and New York organized such distributions. They actively claimed the position of \u201cgiver\u201d and provider of \u201ccharity\u201d, considering this practice as a means of countering and resisting the Hindu community\u2019s perceived \u201cthreat\u201d of conversion. They actively contested what Christian missionaries were said to have been labelled as \u201cgifts from Jesus\u201d before. Clothing distributions may hence influence socio-religious hierarchies and challenge established power structures. Alongside practices of consuming clothing (i.e. wearing them), the exchange of (used) clothes may enhance or lower a group\u2019s or person\u2019s status by displaying taste and (re-)creating capital. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 1: A Hindu mandir in Guyana (photo: S. Klo\u00df, 2015). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 2: A yellow saree had been offered to a female deity. Clothes like that will be collected and shipped to Guyana for redistribution in the temple community or for use in the temple (photo: S. Klo\u00df, 2012). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Fig. 3: Some ritual paraphernalia adding up during a Sunday puja (ritual veneration) in New York, including cloth and sarees (photo: S. Klo\u00df, 2012). <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Further Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Halstead, N., 2011. \u201cGift Practices in Guyanese East Indian Diaspora: Belonging, Loss, and Status.\u201d The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology<\/em>, 16 (2), 278\u2013295. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jayawardena, C., 1966. \u201cReligious Belief and Social Change: Aspects of the Development of Hinduism in British Guiana.\u201d Comparative Studies in Society and History<\/em>, vol. 8 (2), 211\u2013240. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Klo\u00df, Sinah T., 2017. Contesting \u201cGifts from Jesus\u201d: Conversion, Charity, and the Distribution\u00a0of Used Clothing in Guyana. Social Sciences and Missions<\/em>, 30 (3), 346\u2013365.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Klo\u00df, Sinah T., 2020. \u201cGiving and Development: Ethno-Religious Identities and \u2018Holistic Development\u2019 in Guyana.\u201d In: Faith-Based Organizations in Development Discourses and Practice<\/em> (eds. J. Koehrsen, A. Heuser), London: Routledge, pp. 113\u2013138.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williams, B. 1991. Stains on My Name, War in My Veins. Guyana and the Politics of Cultural Struggle<\/em>, Durham: Duke University Press. 
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sinah Klo\u00dfBCDSS Research Group Leader  The distribution of (used) clothing can influence socio-religious hierarchies and challenge established power structures. Hindus in Guyana associated the charitable distribution of clothing with Christian missions and Christian attempts at conversion. As a countermeasure, they organized their own distributions and actively claimed the position of the giving and charitable group.  […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"themenfeld":[43,44,45],"class_list":["post-163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en","themenfeld-strong-asymmetrical-dependencies","themenfeld-resistance-resilience","themenfeld-spindle-loom-needle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2529,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/2529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163"},{"taxonomy":"themenfeld","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fabrics-of-dependency.uni-bonn.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/themenfeld?post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}