Live-streaming the goddess in the times of COVID-19: a digital ethnography of diasporic Durga Puja festivals in pandemic Britain

Abstract

ABSTRACT Diasporic Durga Puja festivals in contemporary Britain have emerged as focal points in the religious lives of Hindu Bengalis. However, the public health measures introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible to host in-person indoor Durga Puja festivals in Britain in the autumn of 2020. In response, many UK-based Durga Puja organisers staged small-scale ritual worship of the goddess in private, and then livestreamed it to their members through social media. Based on participant observation of these festival livestreams and remote interviews with Durga Puja organisers from across Britain, in this article I demonstrate that far from being a rupture, these blended Durga Puja festivals mark a development in existing templates of mediatisation of religious practices and are part of the wider continuum of adaptations that characterise diasporic lived religion. I also reflect on how internal hierarchies within the diaspora played out vis-à-vis blended Pujas amidst the pandemic.