Digital derasars in diaspora: a critical examination of Jain Ritual online

Over the last decades, researchers in the fields of media studies and sociology have described how technological change in general, and the rise in ICT more recently, impacts upon migrants' daily lives. Studies on the transformations and adaptations that new media can cause in modes of religious practice and authority in different traditions have followed. However, the relation between Jainism and new media, although mentioned in the work of John E. Cort and Peter Flügel on Jain modernism, has as yet not been fully delved into. For Jains, especially those living in the diaspora, the new possibilities and modalities new media bring on a social and communicative level seem to be clear. But does the Internet also impact upon Jain religious praxis? Based on a structural analysis of more than 300 Jain websites hosted worldwide, alongside a series of in-depth interviews with Jains living in Belgium and the USA, this chapter will specifically address online ritual practices. It will describe the services offered by a selection of Jain websites and subsequently analyse their reception and potential use in the daily religious routines of Jains in the diaspora. In doing so, it will provide an exemplary case study of the different aspects, functions, and limitations of computer-mediated ritual, opening up the possibility of comparative studies with other (South Asian) traditions.

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