The Sacred Diesel: Infrastructures of Transportation and Religious Art in Manila

by Anderson Blanton (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen)

To cite this article: Blanton, A. (2015). The Sacred Diesel: Infrastructures of Transportation and Religious Art in Manila. New Diversities, 17(2), 73–86. https://doi.org/10.58002/7bcm-hv02

This paper describes the development of a vernacular form of religious art upon the surface of the Jeepney, one of the most popular modes of public transport in the Southeast Asian megacity of Metro Manila. Through a focus on the pious visual culture of the crowded streets of Manila, the essay proposes a new way to describe and theorize paratransit, or informal modes of urban transportation. By examining the Jeepney and its religious images, the paper demonstrates how this form of paratransit has refashioned the urban landscape into a mobile network of miraculous appearances, communal prayers and divine blessings.

Keywords: , , , , , , , ,

New Diversities • Volume 17, No. 2, 2015
The Infrastructures of Diversity: Materiality and Culture in Urban Space
Guest Editors: Marian Burchardt (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen), Stefan Höhne (Technische Universität Berlin) and AbdouMaliq Simone (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen)
ISSN-Print 2199-8108
ISSN-Internet 2199-8116