Friction

The following two subsections draws upon Anna Tsing's defintion of friction where it "is not a synonym for resistance" because it "is not just about slowing things down", but rather "inflects historical trajectories, enabling, excluding, and particularizing" (6). While the earlier section about affecting bodies demonstrated how Tu Lam temple's identity is created by grounding Buddhism into a very tangible experience, the next subsections will highlight how the temple's two sub-identities as a home and cultural space create friction with the temple's primary identity. This friction rather than detract from the temple's rhetorical effectivness actually helps the temple become more rhetorically persuasive to its public. This friction allows the temple to become a more accurate reflection of its public's intersectional identity.