Paper short abstract:

Focused on ethnographic research among Portuguese Hindu communities, I address the intensification of the use of digital technologies, following Covid19 Pandemic. How do these channels contribute to heritage-making processes through the transmission of forms of knowledge and cultural legacies?

Paper long abstract:

In the wake of the covid 19 pandemic, Hindu communities in Greater Lisbon have developed strategies to keep in close contact, intensifying their activities through digital platforms. These channels were essential to maintain networks of solidarity but also of transmission of knowledge, and of cultural and religious references, which are a relevant part of the heritage of these groups with origins in India.

This paper aims to explore what changes have persisted since the pandemic crisis, as social media and digital platforms remain active in the transmission of live rituals, devotional chants, food workshops, dance performances, and yoga classes. These contents convey cultural legacies and forms of knowledge which comprise the migrant heritage (Innocenti 2014) of these "communities of practice", circulating through digital technologies.

From ethnographic research among a group of Portuguese Hindu-Gujaratis and their diverse and complex heritage, this paper focuses on the process of digital transmission of cultural and religious migrant heritage as something that links individuals and their communities to an origin - more or less distant - but also that includes them in the processes of intersection with the surrounding society.

From a methodological perspective, I also intend to reflect on the need to adapt to new forms of collecting and sharing data, of maintaining contacts and on innovative ways of doing ethnography, increasingly directed towards the digital field.