What is disrupted through the process of destruction? What space is reconstructed when the rubble of destruction is destroyed? And how do the communities conceptualize and experience the rubble of destruction and reconstruction of religious sites and sacred objects in their everyday life? This talk will establish a dialogue with these questions by exploring how destruction and government-led tourist-centric reconstruction of Buddhists' religious spaces (bihars) have affected the religious practices and social relationships of Buddhist communities in Ramu, a town of a Muslim-majority country, Bangladesh. It will reveal what relation violence against sacred sites bears to violence against the people who built, inhabited, or identified with that sacred space.
