Kerala Christian Sainthood

Christianity has an ancient heritage in South India. According to tradition it was first brought to Kerala by the Apostle Thomas. Many Christian groups now coexist in Kerala, home to most of India's Christians. In this fascinating fieldwork-based study, Corinne Dempsey examines the ways in which Kerala Christians construct "hybrid" (Western and Eastern) identity in a postcolonial world. She focuses on their devotion to saints as a particularly useful point of comparison with similar devotion in European Catholicism and the indigenous Hinduism of the region.