Janet Alison Hoskins
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824840044
- eISBN:
- 9780824868611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824840044.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
The sixth chapter includes a number of newer Caodai followers, many of them women. In “The Divine Eye on the Internet,” I examine the influence of new technology on the creation of deterritorialized ...
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The sixth chapter includes a number of newer Caodai followers, many of them women. In “The Divine Eye on the Internet,” I examine the influence of new technology on the creation of deterritorialized sacred communities, whose “holy land” may no longer be anchored to a specific landscape. Rival Caodai overseas groups now debate the importance of ties to their homeland on the Internet, and shoot television shows to proselytize on a global scale. This allows religious communities in Vietnam and the diaspora to define each other—sometimes by reaction and exclusion—and also allows an originally “Vietnamese” set of religious images to interact extensively with many other forms of iconography that float around in cyberspace. The Internet has attracted many non-Vietnamese Americans, including several converts who have been ordained as ministers, worked as translators of Caodai scripture, and helped to broaden the appeal of a once very “Vietnamese” vision of global unity.Less
The sixth chapter includes a number of newer Caodai followers, many of them women. In “The Divine Eye on the Internet,” I examine the influence of new technology on the creation of deterritorialized sacred communities, whose “holy land” may no longer be anchored to a specific landscape. Rival Caodai overseas groups now debate the importance of ties to their homeland on the Internet, and shoot television shows to proselytize on a global scale. This allows religious communities in Vietnam and the diaspora to define each other—sometimes by reaction and exclusion—and also allows an originally “Vietnamese” set of religious images to interact extensively with many other forms of iconography that float around in cyberspace. The Internet has attracted many non-Vietnamese Americans, including several converts who have been ordained as ministers, worked as translators of Caodai scripture, and helped to broaden the appeal of a once very “Vietnamese” vision of global unity.
