Allocco will spend eight months in Tamil Nadu, India, in 2023-24 completing an ethnographic study of three generations of Hindu drummer-priests, called pampaikk膩rar, who lead important religious and cultural rituals, including family rites, domestic ceremonies, and temple festivals. Allocco鈥檚 work with the family will explore the creation, transmission and refashioning of their musical and ritual repertoires with attention to how they are changing in modern times and what the practice reveals about shifts in religious sentiments, aesthetic preferences, and social and economic conditions.

Allocco was awarded a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship through the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, as well as a senior fellowship from the American Institute of Indian Studies, to undertake this cutting-edge research project beginning this summer. She is one of around 800 U.S. citizens who will teach or conduct research abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program in 2023-24.

鈥淭he distinctive and important place that pampaikk膩rar occupy in the devotional culture of many non-elite Tamil castes compels us to broaden our register of Hindu ritual authorities to include this expert class of specialists,鈥� Allocco said. 鈥淭hese artists have never been the subject of a full-length study. Although they are both the ritual musicians and the ritual priests in these contexts, we know almost nothing about these complementary roles. I would be bringing them into the literature so they can be featured in a more inclusive accounting of who the ritual specialists in Hindu traditions are.鈥�

Allocco is an anthropologist of religion whose research focuses on vernacular Hinduism, especially contemporary Hindu ritual and religious practices in Tamil Nadu, where she has carried out extensive fieldwork since studying abroad there in 1995.

Allocco first encountered the family troupe of pampaikk膩rar in 2015, during a first Fulbright-sponsored study. Impressed by their virtuosic playing and the distinct decorative style of their ritual displays, she connected with and began following them as they traveled and led rituals in the region.

Though they perform other rituals around weddings, births and other events, in her previous research project Allocco was most interested in documenting the folk ritual of calling the dead. Families and communities participating ask their loved ones to return in the form of household deities. The pampaikk膩rar play songs and create and decorate elaborate vessels throughout the rituals, which last several days.

Now, Allocco wants to focus on the drummer-priests themselves, focusing on the ways that their musical and ritual roles are intertwined. 鈥淚 want to record their stories, storytelling and songs and plan to deposit digital resources with the American Institute of Indian Studies鈥� Archives and Research Center for Ethnomusicology so that these cultural heritage materials will be accessible to Indian and international scholars and preserved for future generations,鈥� Allocco said.

She will also study how the songs, artistry and rites are transmitted intergenerationally and among pampaikk膩rar. The practices aren鈥檛 written down and, after seeing the family鈥檚 patriarch pull troupe members aside to teach and refine skills, Allocco became interested in their pedagogies and emphasis on intergenerational learning. The family Allocco will study wants the artform to thrive and also teaches skills and techniques to other drummer-priests. Younger generations of the family are using technology and social media to advertise and promote the artform.

鈥淭hey are an interesting family on their own. They are very traditional in certain respects, such as transmitting their craft, but they are open to innovation and collaboration. They are a delight to learn from,鈥� Allocco said. 鈥淲hat sets them apart is their raw talent, ritual skill and musical virtuosity.鈥�

This summer, Multifaith Scholar Daniel Scheff 鈥�24 will complete a separate research project alongside Allocco in South India through the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience. Scheff鈥檚 project focuses on a ninth-century Hindu religious figure and poet-saint, Andal, and how her compositions and biography influence models of acceptable womanhood in colonial and post-colonial India.

Allocco will also reconnect with Anya Fresell 鈥�18, a former Lumen Scholar now enrolled in a doctoral program of Emory University鈥檚 Graduate Division of Religion, for a joint ethnographic project to map and study the development of a network of Hindu, Muslim and Christian shrines and religious sites in a multireligious neighborhood in south Chennai.

Allocco joined 黑料不打烊 faculty in 2009 after completing her doctorate in the West and South Asian Religions program in the Graduate Division of Religion at Emory University. She holds a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard Divinity School and a bachelor鈥檚 degree from Colgate University. She is the founding director of 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Multifaith Scholars Program, the 2019 recipient of the university鈥檚 Ward Family Excellence in Mentoring Award and 黑料不打烊 College, the College of Arts and Sciences awards for Excellence in Scholarship in 2021 and Excellence in Teaching in 2012.

This semester, Wilbourne was a recipient of the PERCS Outstanding Ethnography Award.

Wilbourne鈥檚 scholarship and leadership were recognized with inductions into Omicron Delta Kappa, Phi Kappa Phi and Theta Alpha Kappa honor societies. She also was a teaching and learning assistant with Professor of Biology Dave Gammon in SCI 126: Journey Through Time in fall 2020.

How did you select your arts administration major?

I chose this degree to combine my love of the arts with my desire to connect audiences with different kinds of art, both visual and performance.

Tell us about your undergraduate research experience.

As a Multifaith Scholar, I examined the negotiation of religion, tradition, and modernity in a Korean dance called seungmu. Seungmu, translated as “monk鈥檚 dance,” was once considered a religious Buddhist dance, but due to many factors including the influence of modernity and the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945), it has been standardized and secularized in the modern-day. In my work, I interviewed contemporary practitioners and masters of seungmu to explore how they perceived seungmu鈥檚 status in Korea today.

I was interested in this topic as a means to combine my existing interests in dance, religious studies and Korean culture. I presented the conclusions of my ethnographic and theoretical research at various conferences including the Association for Asian Performance Conference, the American Academy of Religion Southeast Conference, and the Forum on Education Abroad Conference, in addition to 黑料不打烊鈥檚 SURF Day.

Were there faculty you worked closely with? How did their support influence you?

I was co-mentored by two incredible scholars, Dr. Pamela Winfield and Dr. Casey Avaunt. Their endless support and generosity have been the most impactful part of my time at 黑料不打烊, and no aspect of my research would have been as successful as it was without their mentorship. They have helped me through all of the ups and downs of my research experience and their faith in me to conduct such high-level, significant work has given me a great deal of confidence in myself as a scholar.

What are your post-黑料不打烊 plans?

I鈥檓 planning a career in arts administration with particular interest in facilitating theatre, dance and the performing arts.

As you reflect on your undergraduate years, what鈥檚 been most valuable to you? Are there accomplishments you鈥檙e particularly proud of?

My participation in the Multifaith Scholars program has been a very valuable part of my undergraduate experience. The benefit of being in a cohort where you are given the resources and support to conduct graduate-level work as an undergraduate cannot be overstated. I have learned so many research skills through my time as a MFS, as well as interpersonal, presentation, writing, ethnographic, and coding skills. I鈥檓 incredibly proud of the fact that my article describing my research, fieldwork, and conclusions has been selected for publication by the Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa and will be published in their Fall 2022 publication following the revisions process.

What advice would you give future 黑料不打烊 students?

The most important thing I would tell an 黑料不打烊 student is that you should never put pressure on yourself to try and do everything. You will simply never be able to. Many people may encourage you to join every club, try every class, take part in every on-campus event, or say yes to any and every opportunity that comes your way. This, in my opinion, puts way too much pressure on students and you should instead learn when and where to expend your energy so you don鈥檛 get overwhelmed. Use your first year to figure out how you want to sustainably spend your time and energy, and learn how to say no. This will serve you more in the long run.

This award is usually given to a single recipient and recognizes the student who has conducted the most outstanding ethnographic research project at 黑料不打烊, judged according to the quality of both the process and product. This year, however, two projects stood out as exemplary and worthy of recognition.

Boone is an anthropology major with minors in Spanish and psychology. As an Honors student, she completed her senior thesis, titled 鈥淔ear for the Future: Youth Climate Change Activism,鈥� an ethnography that analyzes how hope and fear combined fuel the activism of environmental youth.

Boone conducted research for her project during a global pandemic, which added a deeper analysis of her methods as she had to consider the ways Zoom interviews impacted her project. In rethinking her research methods, she chose to incorporate an art project to unpack the meaningful ways in which hope and fear are expressed nonverbally. Throughout her research process and writing progress, Boone sorted through the challenges that came her way with a positive attitude and a very pragmatic problem-solving approach.

The North Carolina native is now moving on to pursue a聽master鈥檚 degree at Oregon State University to further develop her research project focused on聽how art and emotions are part of a milieu that redefines climate change activism.

Emily Wilbourne is an arts administration major with a dance and interreligious studies double minor. She is also a member of the Multifaith Scholars program. Her project investigated the impact of Japanese imperialism on a traditional Buddhist drum dance from Korea called “seungmu” to explore embodied negotiations of national identity and religion in relation to political ideologies and historical frameworks.

Wilbourne’s research project brought her to Korea on two separate occasions, where she conducted ethnographic fieldwork in Busan. As a SURE / CSRCS Summer Fellow during June and July 2021, she interviewed renowned practitioners, teachers and masters of the dance, in addition to interviewing historians of modern Korea with the assistance of a translator. She also conducted participant observation by studying the technically demanding Monk鈥檚 Dance with a professional seungmu dancer, and she attended traditional dance performances at the National Gugak Center in Busan.

Her research has been presented at two national professional conferences, recognized on the national level by an award from the Forum for Education Abroad, and accepted for publication in the Journal of Theta Alpha Kappa, the national honors society for Religious Studies.

The JAAR is the flagship journal in the discipline of religious studies. One of Allocco鈥檚 photos is featured as the cover image. It depicts the percussive instruments that are essential in a range of ritual performances, including ceremonies to deify deceased family members that are the subject of her current research.

Allocco has conducted long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Tamil-speaking South India focused on the broad repertoire of ritual relationships that Tamil Hindus maintain with their deceased kin. She is especially interested in rituals to honor those known as 辫耻虅惫补虅迟蹋补颈办办补虅谤颈, dead relatives who are entitled to be worshiped as beneficent household deities that protect a family. This article presents one Hindu invitation ritual to invite three deceased women back into the world of the living and install them as family deities that she recorded in 2015. Allocco gained access to the two-day ceremony by virtue of her long-standing relationships with the ritual musician-priests who officiate at these performances.

These ritual specialists compel deceased relatives to reenter the world of the living, convince them to possess a human host, and persuade them to be permanently installed in the family鈥檚 domestic shrine so that they may protect and sustain the family. Drawn from dozens of such invitation rituals that she witnessed in Tamil Nadu, Allocco leverages this ceremony to demonstrate that predominant scholarly perceptions of death and what follows it in Hindu traditions have severely constrained scholars鈥� ability to take account of other models for relationships and ritual engagement between the living and the dead.

Allocco argues that these rites 鈥� rather than aiming for an irrevocable separation of the dead from the living, effected through cremation and reincarnation and pursuing the ultimate goal of liberation 鈥� are oriented toward eventual conjunction with the dead. Invitation rituals for 辫耻虅惫补虅迟蹋补颈办办补虅谤颈s, which are common among particular middle- and low-caste Tamil Hindu communities, reveal a fundamentally different picture than that articulated in the majority of Hinduism鈥檚 sacred texts and scholarly accounts.

Allocco believes that these rituals demand that scholars rethink their reliance on the prevailing cremation-reincarnation-liberation paradigm for the Hindu afterlife. The majority of her interlocutors bury their dead, and most articulate discomfort with the idea that they must be repeatedly reborn and deny that their ultimate goal is to achieve release of the soul.

The case study that Allocco features in her article demonstrates that existing scholarly frameworks that rely on high-caste, textual and gendered norms have impeded our ability to perceive how, in some communities, families keenly desire the presence of the dead in the home, the living rely on the dead to cultivate familial prosperity, and kinship relationships between the living and dead are continually negotiated and performed.

The fieldwork that forms the basis for this article was carried out in 2015-2016 as part of Allocco鈥檚 鈥�Domesticating the Dead: Invitation and Installation Rituals in Tamil South India鈥� research project. Her sabbatical research was supported by a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship and an American Institute of Indian Studies Senior Fellowship with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Allocco conducted follow-up field research related to this project in Tamil Nadu in 2018 and 2019.

Allocco co-edited the volume with Dr. Jennifer D. Ortegren, assistant professor of religion at Middlebury College. It includes peer-reviewed articles written by scholars working in the field of South Asian religions whose ethnographic research stretches back to the 1970s. This issue grows out of a 2019 symposium that Allocco and Ortegren jointly organized for the Annual Conference on South Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (see related article below), an interdisciplinary South Asian studies conference that attracts 1,100 scholars annually.

By taking the productive tensions between 鈥渉ome鈥� and 鈥渢he field鈥� as its primary interpretive framework, the 11 scholars who contributed to the special issue are able to explore varying strategies for self-fashioning and self-presentation in their fieldwork contexts. They also identify sensory engagements with and emotional entanglements in these contexts and call for richer reflexivity and standpoint work in ethnographic writing. All of the essays in the volume offer reflections on the contingencies and positionalities that shape ethnographic engagements and ways of knowing, thereby demonstrating that all ethnographic knowledge is inescapably partial and incomplete. Many of them argue for privileging accountability and reciprocity in fieldwork interactions and in the production of anthropological knowledge itself.

In addition to co-authoring the introduction to the special issue with Ortegren, Allocco also contributed an article titled 鈥淪hifting Technologies of Reflection: Intergenerational Relationships and the Entanglements of Field and Home.鈥� Her contribution considers the diverse forms of field-writing, including handwritten letters home, creative essays, emails, and more (what she calls 鈥渢echnologies of reflection鈥�), that she has produced over the course of 25 years of study and fieldwork in South India. Allocco leverages this material to reflect on the intergenerational gifts and relationships that have structured her experience of the flows between home and the field and highlights the deeply intersubjective and relational aspects of fieldwork. Reflecting on the sources in her archive 鈥搘hich powerfully illustrate the interpenetrations of home and field, life and death, and self and other 鈥� leads Allocco to reaffirm her commitment to centering the crucial relationships that develop in these contexts in her scholarship, teaching, and mentoring.

The article focuses on a Tamil Hindu woman named Aaru, who embodied the Goddess in possession performances from age thirteen, resisted marriage through her 20s, and committed suicide at 29. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Aaru and her family conducted between 2006 and 2019, it analyzes narratives concerning her untimely death, subsequent deification, and eventual domestication as a聽puvataikkari (a dead relative who is worshiped as a family deity). It highlights the hermeneutical challenges associated with three intersecting spheres: the dominant categories that shape the scholarly understanding of Hinduism; vernacular Hinduism as revealed in Aaru鈥檚 complex story; and the ethnographic research and writing process. Allocco argues that by acknowledging multiple interpretive possibilities, we can enlarge and nuance our understandings of matters as diverse as ritual relationships with the dead, the nature of Tamil family deities, and the gendered tensions of the contemporary moment. Indeed, she argues that Aaru鈥檚 case offers us significant resources for a fuller, more inclusive appreciation of the textures of vernacular Hinduism 鈥� Hinduism as it is experienced, lived, and practiced in particular places and contexts 鈥� and compels us to consider the limitations of prevailing interpretive paradigms and the fragmental and shifting nature of ethnographic knowledge.

Allocco presented an early version of the material that formed the basis for her article at the 2018 Annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin. She then presented another iteration of this paper at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 2019 before revising and expanding it for publication in The Journal of Hindu Studies.

The book is edited by Christopher Vescey, the Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the Humanities and Native American Studies in the Department of Religion at Colgate, and grew out of a symposium held at Colgate in April 2018 to honor the contributions of these two professors. While Allocco took classes with both faculty members during her undergraduate years at Colgate, Professor Warren Berry was her primary advisor and the mentor of her Humanities Summer Research Fellowship.

Allocco was invited back to Colgate’s campus for the three-day symposium in April along with four other alumnae who have gone on to earn doctorates in religious studies and philosophy. These former students of Warren Berry and Thie presented papers reflecting on the undergraduate training they received and how this legacy has shaped their careers as teachers and scholars at their respective institutions.

Allocco presented alongside Teresa Delgado, another of Warren Berry鈥檚 mentees, who is now associate professor of theology and ethics at Iona College and a member of Colgate鈥檚 Board of Trustees. Allocco was also invited to guest teach in a course titled 鈥淗ealth and Healing in Asian Religions鈥� by the instructor, Assistant Professor of Religion Aftab Jassal at Colgate. Other symposium presenters who are included in the newly published volume are Dianne M. Stewart (associate professor of religion at Emory University), Chris J. Cuomo (professor of philosophy and women鈥檚 studies at the University of Georgia), and Marianne Janack (professor of philosophy at Hamilton College), with responses authored by Thie and Warren Berry.

Allocco鈥檚 chapter, 鈥淣urtured and Challenged: Feminist Mentoring and Memory at Colgate and Beyond,鈥� describes her intellectual and personal development under Warren Berry鈥檚 tutelage and mentorship and the ways these experiences shaped her trajectory as a teacher, scholar and mentor. She outlines how the feminist questions originally framed during her studies as a double major in philosophy and religion and Asian studies at Colgate 鈥� about the gendered nature of religious traditions and institutions, who has the authority to speak about and critique them, and the complicated role that religion plays in identity formation, power structures and social relations鈥攈ave remained salient in her scholarship and teaching. She discusses questions about ethnographic representation and collaboration and how the act of 鈥渨riting the field鈥� is a power-laden enterprise.

The chapter argues for feminist anthropological practices that produce more inclusive, engaged and nuanced scholarship through consistent commitment to reflexivity, context-sensitivity and power-sharing both in fieldwork and in writing. Allocco reflected on fieldwork on a female Hindu healer in South India that she published in the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion in a 2013 article that earned the journal鈥檚 Elisabeth Sch眉ssler Fiorenza New Scholar Award, as a case study to illustrate these feminist anthropological practices and connected Warren Berry鈥檚 example to her own teaching at 黑料不打烊, particularly in the 鈥淐urrent Controversies in Feminism鈥� capstone course for the Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality Studies minor.

Bridges competed against other undergraduate students for the award, which was accompanied by a cash prize, a collection of donated books and an offer for review and publication in the SAS 2017 Proceedings and Southern Anthropologist, an online peer-reviewed journal. 

Bridges’ project, “Navigating Globalization through Myth in Quechua Communities of Southern Peru,” focuses on the intersection of mythology and globalizing forces such as tourism and religious conversion among the indigenous Quechua in the Peruvian Andes. Bridges, mentored by Tom Mould, professor of anthropology and director of the Honors Program, is an Honors Fellow and Lumen Scholar.

Oliverio, an Honors Fellow who majored in religious studies and international studies, was named first runner-up for ASIANetwork’s Marianna McJimsey Award, which recognizes top student papers focused on Asian studies. Oliverio’s paper, “Migration and Identity: Gender Dynamics and Religious Participation among Sikh Women in North Carolina,” stemmed from her Honors Fellow thesis research under Amy Allocco, associate professor of religious studies. 

Oliverio said the paper resulted from about 18 months of research starting with a focus on a gurudwara, a Sikh temple of worship, in Durham that expanded to include interviews with first- and second-generation members of the Sikh community. Her paper zeroed in on how gender is enacted and discussed within their religious community. 

“They explain gender within the context of ‘home,’ which is both in India, their home country, and the United States, their new home,” Oliverio explains. “Participants often revealed that their migration to the United States has helped them form hybrid and interlocking religious and gender identities, which they describe as allowing them to practice Sikhism and its egalitarian practices more fully in the United States than in India.”

While at 黑料不打烊, Oliverio was , the oldest and often considered the nation’s most prestigious honor society, and in spring 2016 , one of 黑料不打烊’s annual leadership awards. Oliverio is now a first-year student at American University Washington College of Law in Washington, D.C., and hopes to pursue a career in international law, human rights law or immigration and refugee law. 

ASIANetwork seeks to promote Asia within the framework of a liberal arts education “to help prepare succeeding generations of undergraduates for a world in which Asian societies play prominent roles in an ever more interdependent world.” The annual prize honors the service of Marianna McJimsey, the first executive director of ASIANetwork and the first editor of ASIANetwork Exchange.

The Syrian War: Making Sense of an Intractable Conflict

Numen Lumen Pavilion, 5:30 p.m.

Najib Ghadbian, Special Representative for the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces’ to the United States and United Nations

Sponsored by the 黑料不打烊 Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society

Numen Lumen Pavilion, 4:30-6:00 pm.

Reception to follow 

Speak Out for Syria and the International and Global Studies program present a unique event featuring the voices and experiences of a Syrian refugee family in North Carolina as they tell their story of their journey from Syria to the U.S. Panelists will also examine how this global political and moral crisis has developed since 黑料不打烊 examined the issue last fall. This is an opportunity to better understand the people behind the headlines and to discuss potential options to reduce suffering and end a war that has killed an estimated 500,000 people and created more than 4 million refugees since 2011.  

Additional sponsors include: The Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society, The Center For Public Affairs – Department of Political Science, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, PERCS, Peace and Conflict Studies, Department of History and Georgraphy, the Truitt Center.

This event has been Identified by the Council on Civic Engagement as an opportunity to foster student intellectual and civic engagement.