For a ‘beautiful’ religion without ‘buzz’: Hinduism, Facebook, gender, and status in La Reunion

The ways in which some Hindu women use Facebook in the French overseas department of La Reunion suggest an intrinsic relationship between religion and media, not only in the sense of religious mediation, but also as mediation between their aspirations and achievements in terms of religious knowledge, gender roles, and social status. While their Facebook interactions need to be considered in continuation with their offline aspirations, the young women reported in this article use Facebook to create an alternative space to claim positions of authority. In contrast to the temple context and its strictly gendered access and tasks, they can, to a certain extent, bypass notions of ritual (im)purity and male domination on Facebook and take important roles in the selected dissemination and display of religious knowledge.