Saivism in the Diaspora: Contemporary Forms of Skanda Worship, by Ron Geaves

This vast study provides an anthropological analysis of the worship of Skanda, one the sons of Siva, as found in the Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Mauritius, London, and Wales. By providing thick description and employing some of the categories used by anthropolgists thirty or more years ago (“big and little traditions” and Sanskritization), Geaves shows how little relevance these ideas hold in the contemporary, globalized era, and suggests that the simultaneous rise of de-regionalized and regionalized forms of Hinduism that have cross-cultural and intergenerational appeal defies the tidiness of these now old-fashioned styles of analysis.