Practical Matters, Spring 2010, Issue 3, pp. 1-8. © The Author 2010. Published by Emory University. All rights reserved. 1 “Better Left Unsaid:” Ethnographic Representation and Discernment in “A Virtual Village” Peter Gottschalk, Wesleyan University Mathew N. Schmalz, The College of the Holy Cross Introduction T eaching about religion in South Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lan- ka—has tended to depend on images of discreet “religions”—Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Christianity—some of which appear to have a mutual, communal hostility for one another. Paradoxically, many efforts to undermine such portrayals nevertheless reassert notions of distinction because they still describe people, places, and practices as “Hindu,” “Mus- lim,” “Buddhist,” etc. Such adjectives suggest a sense of singular belonging when, in fact, many individuals identify with more than one community, myriad sites attract inter-communal crowds, and innumerable practices appear more “Indic” than identifable with only one religious tradition. Meanwhile, expectations among many students that religion occupies a place apart from most people’s everyday activities narrows their understanding of how deeply religion permeates many Indians’ (and, indeed, many Americans’) lives. As students use the online education website “A Virtual Village,” they discover for themselves how one rural, north Indian community manifests these complexities. Assigned by their instructor to explore the village and note the religious phenomena they encounter, students “enter” temples, mosques, and tombs to observe the practices pictured there. In some places, they interview practi- tioners virtually, hearing and reading their responses. But users also fnd religious images in some shops, while some homes sport images of Hindu gods or Islamic calligraphy. They fnd Hindus and