Jaina Studies

Tine Vekemans

Contact details

Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
Ghent University
Blandijnberg 2
B-9000 Gent
5th floor, office 150.009

email: Tine.Vekemans@ugent.be

 Research

  • Jainism and the Jain diaspora
  • The effects of migration on cultural identity and religious praxis
  • The role of digital media in contemporary religious praxis

Research projects [link to https://research.flw.ugent.be/en/tine.vekemans]

Biography

When coming to the university in 2003, it was mainly her love for language and the desire to learn something entirely new, that motivated Tine to enter the field of Oriental Languages and Cultures. She discovered the wonderful world of Hindi, Sanskrit, and Arabic. As time went by, she got more and more interested in modern South-Asian politics and religions, and in South-Asian Migrant communities. She graduated in 2007 with a master thesis titled Hindutva and the Dalits, analyzing the ways in which the Hindu religious-nationalist movements try to incorporate the lower castes and outcasts. In the ManaMa Conflict and Development, she spent a year expanding her knowledge of contemporary India, international politics and globalization.

 

After graduating, Tine worked in the migration-sector, as a translator, and as an intercultural advisor. It is from that backdrop that she rejoined Ghent University as a researcher in 2013. In April 2019 she was awarded a doctoral degree on the basis of her research into the impact of digital media on cultural identity and religious praxis in Jain migrant-communities.

 

Having obtained a FWO Junior Postdoctoral grant, Tine is now working on a new research project on the continuing role of twice-migration in the lives of 'East-African' Jains in the UK.

 

Her fields of expertise are:

 

  • Migration, Migration and Memory, esp. South Asian Diaspora
  • Religion, Digital Religion, esp. Jainism
  • Modern History of South Asia

Selected Publications

  • Vekemans, Tine. 2019. “Roots, Routes, and Routers : Social and Digital Dynamics in the Jain Diaspora.” Ed. Anne Vallely. Religions 10 (4).
  • Vekemans, Tine. 2019. “Jainism on the Internet.” In BRILL Encyclopedia of Jainism, ed. Knut A. Jacobsen. Leiden: Brill.
  • Vekemans, Tine. 2019. “Jains in Belgium.  .” In BRILL Encyclopedia of Jainism, ed. Knut A. Jacobsen. Leiden: Brill.
  • Vekemans, Tine. 2019. “From Self-learning Pathshala to Pilgrimage App : the Expanding World of Jain Religious Apps.” In The Anthropological Study of Religious and Religion-themed Mobile Apps, ed. Jacqueline H. Fewkes. Palgrave-Macmillan.
  • Vekemans, Tine, and Iris Vandevelde. 2018. “Digital Derasars in Diaspora : a Critical Examination of Jain Ritual Online.” In Religion and Technology in India : Spaces, Practices and Authorities, ed. Knut Axel Jacobsen and Kristina Myrvold, 183–200. Oxon: Routledge.
  • Vekemans, Tine, and Natasha Miletic, eds. 2015. “Discovering Diaspora: a Multidisciplinary Approach”. Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
  • Vekemans, Tine. 2014. “Double-clicking the Temple Bell: Devotional Aspects of Jainism Online.” Ed. Gregor Ahn. Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet 6: 126–143.

Full bibliography [link to https://biblio.ugent.be/person/802000245364]