Domestic deities: Indo-Caribbean spatial territorialization and sacred space in South Richmond Hill, Queens

Gregory Marinic

Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 2024, vol. 17, issue 4, 615-643

Abstract: Shaped by immigrants, the occupancy patterns and visual cultures of American urban neighborhoods have continually shifted over time. The South Richmond Hill section of Queens, New York demonstrates the socio-spatial theories of ethnic succession, collective memory, and heterotopia in relation to participatory place-making. Once home to German, Irish, Italian, and Eastern European immigrants and their multigenerational descendants from the early 1900s through the 1970s, the spiritual landscape of the neighborhood – today known as Little Guyana-Trinidad and Tobago – has largely shifted away from its European immigrant origins toward Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Buddhist, and Jain faith traditions. Here, uniquely Hindu spiritual markings reveal a globalized and religiously diverse neighborhood, as well as an increasingly multicultural American society writ large. This research identifies seven primary elements – jhandi prayer flags, ceremonial gates, garden shrines, living room window deities, adapted house temples, storefront temples, and pooja shops – that define the parameters of Indo-Caribbean socio-spatial territorialization in South Richmond Hill.

Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1080/17549175.2022.2093944

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