NEGOTIATING PLACEMAKING: Public-private spaces and Hinduism in Oman

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are all Islamic countries with different public policies and attitudes to the presence of other religions. This has major implications for the Hindu community, often seen as consisting of migrant workers, which normally bases its religiosity on highly public, participatory and performative rituals. This chapter focuses on how the diverse Hindu community in Oman negotiates its religious identity in an Islamic country by strategically using its past mercantile relations with the ruling families, creating and participating in transnational networks, as well as imaginatively using public-private spaces to engage in rituals and festivities and overcome state restrictions. It suggests that the Hindu diaspora in Oman can be problematised as being more than just a minority community with few religious freedoms in a conservatively Muslim nation. Focusing on the Hindu community in Oman adds to emerging studies on diaspora and transnational mobilities, de-essentialising the binary relations of the state with its religious minorities in this part of the world.