Rails 3.1 ships with built-in helpers:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/TagHelper.html#method-i-tag
E.g.,
tag("div", :data => {:name => 'Stephen', :city_state => %w(Chicago IL)})
# => <div data-name="Stephen" data-city-state="["Chicago","IL"]" />