Even though Mumbai is not known for its religious architecture, the city has an unknown number of sacred buildings of all sorts of sizes and types belonging to a variety of different religious groups and communities or sub-communities.

A handful of places belonging to different religious traditions (e.g., St. Michael‘s church, Walkeshwar temple, Mumbadevi temple, Siddhivinayak temple, Haji Ali mausoleum) have long since been held in esteem by larger sections of the population, thereby criss-crossing the lines of religious demarcation and division and providing spaces of popular religious cosmopolitanism. The popular appeal of these places is temporalized in that they attract larger crowds on specific days of the week or during specific festivals.

This subproject on devotional cosmopolitanism, which is an ingredient in Mumbai urban religion, will take the form of a comparative multi-site ethnography.

Project by Michael Stausberg.