Dr David Geary

David Geary is a research associate at the Institute for Social & Cultural Anthropology on a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He received his DPhil in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia in 2009. His doctoral research was a historical ethnography of Bodh Gaya, the place of Buddha’s enlightenment in the north Indian state of Bihar. In this dissertation he examines the postcolonial and transnational transformation of the Mahabodhi Temple into a UNESCO World Heritage site. Through the lens of heritage and the politics of remembering, he looks at how different social groups appropriate the site for their present agendas and delineate the various historical and spatial tensions that arise in their encounters with one another. Central to these tensions are the ways in which extra-national religious groups interface with local and national elites to shape the public memory of the site. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on this doctoral research entitled Destination Enlightenment: Buddhism and the Global Bazaar in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.

As an extension of his doctoral research, David Geary is also looking at the relationship between new forms of global governance and political society linked to projects of universalism such as Word Heritage. This program involves a comparative study of other monumental sites with religious transnational scope such as the recent resurrection of Nalanda International University. He maintains an interest in the ethnography of global cosmopolitanism, space and place, tourism development and religion in South Asia. David can be reached at: david.geary@anthro.ox.ac.uk

List of publications

(In preparation). Incredible India in a Global Age: The Cultural Politics of Image Branding in Tourism.

(In preparation). Buddhism and Jungle Raj: Where the Middle Way meets the Crooked Path.

(Under Review). (co-edited volume with Matthew Sayers & Abhishek Singh Amar) Bodh Gaya Jataka: The Multiple Lives of a Sacred Site.

(In Print). “A landscape suitable for striving: the spatial and aesthetic politics of World Heritage at Buddha Gaya, India” In Culture, Meaning and Space: Studies in Place and Practice, ed. Pauline McKenzie Aucoin, Berghahn Books.

2008. “Destination Enlightenment: Branding Buddhism and Spiritual Tourism in Bodh Gaya, Bihar.” Anthropology Today Vol. 24, No. 3 pp. 11-14.

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