Cambodian Monastery New Delhi: Religion, Social Space, and the Experience of Home among Cambodian Students in New Delhi, India

The essay investigates the roles and importance of the Cambodian Monastery New Delhi, via personal experiences of Cambodian students living and studying in New Delhi, India. The goal is to understand how these students, who are not a homogenous residential group, use the space of the monastery, and how these interactions influence their everyday life. This study, which uses an ethnography technique, draws on field notes, participant observation, semi-structured interviews with seven Cambodian students, and in-depth informal discussions with key temple associates. The main analytical frameworks for the thematic analysis of the collected material were Henri Lefebvre’s idea of social space and Meredith B. McGuire’s concept of lived religion. The results demonstrate that the Cambodian Monastery in New Delhi has a different meaning in the daily life of students. It is an important hub for forging intra-group relationships, participating in religious and cultural events and creating a sense of belonging and proximity to home through similar language, food and group activities. Students also use the monastery as a place to relax, and sometimes as a temporary place to reside. These various patterns indicate that the monastery’s importance is rooted in personal needs and subjective experiences, well beyond institutional religious activity. Finally, the study shows that the meaning of a sacred space is not only an outcome of institutional requirements but is also constantly produced and transformed by ordinary spatial practices. This article combines live religion and social space in an effort to demonstrate the entanglement of religious, social and cultural practices in the ongoing production of space. The Cambodian Monastery New Delhi case underscores the necessity for contemporary research on religion in diaspora or transnational contexts to move away from the rigid institutional functions and static community structures and to focus on the flexible ways in which people experience places, navigate space and practice vernacular religion in their daily lives.