Background, Research Interests, and Public Engagements
My main research focuses on the Buddhist revival in modern/contemporary India and the question of how the politics of national heritage and tourism development intersects with wider transnational communities of religious practice in Asia. The themes central to my work are the colonial and postcolonial dynamics surrounding archaeological heritage and sacred space, the role of tourism and urban redevelopment in India, and the communal conflicts engendered by various social and spatial relations. My most important scholarly contribution to date was a monograph published by the University of Washington Press (Global South Asia Series) entitled The Rebirth of Bodh Gaya: Buddhism and the Making of a World Heritage Site that grew out of my dissertation and SSHRC-funded postdoctoral research at the University of Oxford between 2010-2012.
My ongoing research and public engagement continues to foreground the politics of sacred space, especially the varying ways religious heritage and tourism provide grounds for competing local, national and transnational interests.
Please contact me directly to request a copy of my current CV:
david.geary@ubc.ca