List of Figures
Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. On the Margins: An Introduction
João de Pina-Cabral and Frances Pine

Chapter 2. Homeless Spirits: Modern Spiritualism, Psychical Research and the Anthropology of Religion in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
João Vasconcelos

Chapter 3. The Abominations of Anthropology: Christianity, Ethnographic Taboos and the Meanings of 'Science'
Simon Coleman

Chapter 4. Religious Logistics: African Christians, Spirituality and Transportation
Thomas Kirsch

Chapter 5. Contested Spaces: Temple Building and the Re-creation of Religious Boundaries in Contemporary Urban India
Ursula Rao

Chapter 6. Bosnian Neighbourhoods Revisited: Tolerance, Commitment and Kom¡siluk in Sarajevo
Cornelia Sorabji

Chapter 7. Revival of Buddhist Royal Family Commemorative Ritual in Laos
Grant Evans

Chapter 8. Centres and Margins: The Organisation of Extravagance as Self-government in China
Stephan Feuchtwang

Chapter 9. Allies and Subordinates: Religious Practice on the Margins between Buddhism and Shamanism in Southern Siberia
Galina Lindquist

Chapter 10. On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris in Poland
Agnieszka Koscianska

Chapter 11. Elders' Cathedrals and Children's Marbles: Dynamics of Religious Transmission among the Baga of Guinea
Ramon Sarró

Chapter 12. Geomancy, Politics and Colonial Encounters in Rural Hong Kong
Rubie S. Watson and James L. Watson

Chapter 13. The Sacrifices of Modernity in a Soviet-built Steel Town in Central India
Jonathan P. Parry

Notes on Contributors
Index

Focusing on places, objects, bodies, narratives and ritual spaces where religion may be found or inscribed, the authors reveal the role of religion in contesting rights to places, to knowledge and to property, as well as access to resources. Through analyses of specific historical processes in terms of responses to socio-economic and political change, the chapters consider implicitly or explicitly the problematic relation between science (including social sciences and anthropology in particular) and religion, and how this connects to the new religious globalisation of the twenty-first century. Their ethnographies highlight the embodiment of religion and its location in landscapes, built spaces and religious sites which may be contested, physically or ideologically, or encased in memory and often in silence. Taken together, they show the importance of religion as a resource to the believers: a source of solace, spiritual comfort and self-willed submission.

João de Pina-Cabral is Research Coordinator at the Institute of Social Sciences of the University of Lisbon, where he has been the President of the Scientific Board for the past six years. He has carried out fieldwork and published extensively on Northwestern Portugal, Macau (south China) and Mozambique. His books in English include Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve (Clarendon Press, Oxford), Between China and Europe (Continuum Books, LSE Monographs, London) and various co-edited volumes (JASO, Macmillan and Berg). He is presently the President of the European Association of Social Anthropologists.