"The Cultural Politics of Sacred Groves: A Case Study of Devithans in Sikkim, India"
Amitangshu Acharya and Alison Ormsby explore devithans—Nepali sacred groves—in the eastern Himalayan state of Sikkim, India. Given that historically the Buddhist Lepcha-Bhutias’ cultural association with Sikkim’s sacred landscape has been celebrated, while that of Nepali ethnic groups has been largely invisibilized, they argue that devithans have emerged as a potential political instrument for the latter to validate political and cultural claims to Sikkim’s sacred landscape.