Tantric Futures: Entanglements with Power, Labor, and More‑Than‑Human Worlds

Abstract

Informed by ethnographic fieldwork with humans, nonhumans, and the materiality of living traditions, this collection encourages comparative analysis, interdisciplinary collaboration, and cross-pollination among scholars of religion and Tantra across South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Himalayan region, and Europe. With its premodern origins in South Asia, Tantra has emerged as a repertoire of ritual and spiritual knowledge that has been adopted and adapted by new religious movements and spiritual-but-not-religious (SBNR) groups in both Asia and the Global North. The articles examine the complexities of Tantric careers in relation to labor, gender, embodiment, temporality, and more-than-human environments, highlighting the circulation and exchange of knowledge across and beyond geopolitical Asia. These careers unfold across domains such as ritual, meditation, healing, bodily technologies, gender and sexuality, political economy, and the negotiation of social prestige. A shared methodological focus on ethnography frames Tantra as a field of practice—what we describe as “tantricking”—understood as specialized forms of labor and relational work that mediate between humans, deities, forests, political power, and fragile ecosystems. Collectively, the contributions argue that Tantra should be approached not as an esoteric or abstract system, but as a set of pragmatic practices embedded in specific ecological, political, and multispecies contexts. By centering the work, skill, and livelihoods of practitioners, this collection demonstrates how Tantric traditions operate within entangled networks that shape both self and society, challenging anthropocentric tendencies in Tantric studies and pointing toward new directions for the ethnography of Tantra.