Foreign Swamis at Home in India: Transmigration to the Birthplace of Spirituality

Women and men use local experience and experiences gained elsewhere when they embark on migratory projects to reconfigure social space and practices back home. To explore this claim, the authors argue that we must analyze the relationship between mobility and authority, especially how experiences of mobility bestow authority on the moving subjects. This argument is illustrated by an examination of three differently situated narratives from which two interrelated fields of analysis emerge. One field is related to how authority is perceived in relation to control. The other field is related to the kinds of experience that are produced through acts and narrations of movement and how these experiences become articulated to provide authority to individuals. The authors conclude that movement may subvert and / or reproduce authority, just as authority may be both a source and an effect of movement.