Paper short abstract:

Monks in Myanmar have a long tradition of social engagement, as well as upholding Buddhism's doctrine of non-violence as during the 2007 demonstrations. Why are they now connected to anti-muslim riots and the recent Muslim exodus?

Paper long abstract:

Buddhist monks engaged in the Ma Ba Tha movement maintain that they defend race, nation and Buddhism and that they do not condone violence. They engage in nationalist identity politics against Muslims - named as 'enemy no. 1'. However, they also assist and protect lay Buddhist in everyday disputes as well as in charity and education. Some of the monks are affiliated to military persons and the military party, USDP.

This paper aim at analyzing the reasoning of the monks and their use of spiritual power and nationalism. Defense of religion and nation appeal to many in the uncertain political situation of Military rule behind a civilian NLD government.

Examples from recent ethnographic research in the Karen State are used to illustrate the offensive practices of the monks.

Paper short abstract:

Theories of risk posit logics by which we may understand how societies evaluate and attempt to overcome the discomforting conditions of uncertainty. Logics informing Burmese Buddhist nationalisms draw attention to relationality and necessitate articulation with anthropologies of ethics and affect.

Paper long abstract:

This paper argues that in the context of uncertainty, risk management is a moral undertaking with consequences for individuals, communities, and institutions. It posits that uncertainty is not merely a case of missing information, but rather, an affective state defined by both fears and hopes about unknown future outcomes. As such, managing the risks associated with moments of uncertainty is not merely an epistemological matter but also an affirmation or assertion of values. Risk management technologies thereby serve as sites of meaning-making in which personal, social, and societal values, are prioritised in ways that bring into view select relations within broader assemblages.

The paper thus attempts to produce a relational theory of risk by examining women's participation in nationalist movements in Myanmar and beyond. It presents three key arguments: I) That which is deemed 'at-risk' is collectively valued, which means both action and inaction have moral consequences at the individual, social, and institutional level; II) The degree of significance assigned to certain threats is a reflection of shared values and social anxieties - it is not based on the statistical likelihood of actual harm, nor is it merely an expression of collective, but ultimately relative fears; III) 'Relational Risk', as a framework, enables more nuanced analysis in moments of acute uncertainty and social change. It highlights the significance of affect and emotion in the moral rationalities that underline risk mitigation technologies and argues for a multivalent ethics of cultivating certainty.

Paper short abstract:

Notwithstanding international condemnation of Bodu Bala Sena as an extremist movement, this paper evaluates its critique of Muslims and Islam in Sri Lanka by concentrating on selected cases on the basis of primary materials in the Sinhala language, which are not often used in most investigations.

Paper long abstract:

Though a controversial activist movement today, Bodu Bala Sena did not emerge in mid 2012 with a well-planned, confrontational, systematic agenda against either Muslims or minorities in Sri Lanka. In the course of its political activism well into 2013, Bodu Bala Sena was targeted as an 'ultra-nationalist' Buddhist group by local and international media highlighting it as an organization that was implementing a violent campaign against Muslims and Islam in Sri Lanka. Notwithstanding international condemnation of Bodu Bala Sena as an extremist movement, this paper aims to evaluate its critique of Muslims and Islam in Sri Lanka by concentrating on selected cases on the basis of primary materials in the Sinhala language, which are not often used in most investigations. As case studies, this study will use Bodu Bala Sena's controversial activism in restoring Kuragala as a historic archaeological site and its opposition to the government and a Muslim MP with regard to the destruction of forest in the Wilpattu National Park.

Paper short abstract:

My paper is concerned with gossip as a central instrument to control the moral integrity of the Khuba as a fundraiser for monumental works as well as a Buddhist ascetic. It examines the rise and fall of authenticity and the emergence of a discourse on fake Khuba.

Paper long abstract:

My paper is concerned with gossip as a central instrument to control the moral integrity of the Khuba as a fundraiser for monumental works as well as a Buddhist ascetic. My paper examines the emergence of Theravadin Khruba Buddhist saints in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia, their reputation, Princely status, but also the rise and fall of authenticity and the emergence of a discourse on fake Khuba. The paper explores the development of a Buddhist consumer culture and Buddhist material landscape for branding the Khuba as well as appropriations of, endorsement of, and claims on the Khuba by widely divergent class segments of a growing laity ranging from impoverished borderlanders to wealthy elites, all looking for a spiritual leader and savior. The paper also looks at the dynamics of the redistribution of wealth and the discourse about it in these communicative dynamics.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork with butsudan workers, I detail the affective labours performed in the disposal of altars. In commercializing the Buddhist rite of kuyō, this industry, maligned for profiteering and materialism, cares for "dead" objects and people's complicated emotional attachments to them.

Paper long abstract:

In modern Japan, Buddhist altars (butsudan) have served as near ubiquitous signifiers of religious affiliation, and as key sites for ancestor veneration and Buddhist rites in the home. Lavish, handcrafted altars costing upwards of 80,000 pounds and 'cheap but cheerful' acrylic models anchor two ends of this approximately 5.2 million pounds per annum religious industry. However, as an industry it is regularly condemned by scholars and popular commentators alike as exemplary of the degeneracy of Japanese Buddhist traditions, which are accused of being almost exclusively funerary, materialistic, and above all, mercantile in the face of personal grief.

Today, the butsudan industry faces a state of crisis (Reader 2011). Not only have sales declined dramatically as families adopt non-religious rituals, but old altars are increasingly encountered as surplus goods by those who lack the space, ritual expertise, or inclination to care for them. Like other forms of sacred waste (including dead bodies) disposal is complicated for practical and moral reasons. Often, it requires the performance of special rites of veneration (kuyō). This paper details how workers in the Japanese butsudan industry manage the "problematic feelings" (kimochi-no-mondai) generated by the disposal of altars for themselves and customers. I contextualise these actions within a growing literature on "affective labor" in Japan (Plourde 2014), as the commercialisation of calm in an era of increased pecarity. In commodifying the rite of kuyō, Buddhist industries manage the risks of sacred waste disposal and help resolve heavy ties between living and dead, people and objects.

Paper short abstract:

By studying the economic network of modern monasteries, this paper contends that consumerism is a fundamental feature in understanding Buddhism. It presents that the charging system of high entrance fee virtually generated a consumerist challenge to pilgrimage activities.

Paper long abstract:

Buddhism has been long idealized and isolated as an exemplary religion for the most refined nature of religious humanity ever since its reintroduction to the western world beginning in the nineteenth century. Prominent figures within the tradition who served as active preachers of their own interpretations have misled their global audiences by generating a falsified religious illusion covering by a thick icing of humanitarian discourse signified by compassionate peace. Nevertheless, Buddhism can never be defined statically according to certain phenomenal politics of impression. In the contrary, it has undergone several processes of transplantation and reinterpretation in its long history of transmission through which formed several interrelated but distinctive facets that were generated for responding the modern world. Previous scholarships have questioned the protestant presupposition of a true canonical interpretation of the religion by navigating through archaeological materials. Following similar trajectory, this paper attempts to approach the discussion from both archaeological and anthropological perspectives, to read the trajectory of political economy behind the consumerism of Buddhism. By studying the economic network that connected modern monasteries, this paper contends that consumerism is a fundamental feature in understanding the more comprehensive picture of the religion that has been overlooked. It not only presents that the charging system of high entrance fee virtually generated a consumerist challenge to pilgrimage activities, but also indicated that its close interaction with public commercial patronage activities created a critical platform in which the religious network maintained by secular pursuit.

Paper short abstract:

My paper relates the political context of Hong Kong to how 'modern Buddhism' is lived in the city. I explore what an ethnographic exploration of Hong Kong Buddhism in the years leading up to the Umbrella Movement can contribute to an anthropological understanding of the religion.

Paper long abstract:

During research in Hong Kong between 2012 and 2014, I investigated how specific urban circumstances and religious orientations mutually influence each other, shaping people's day-to-day urban lives. My presentation will illustrate part of my findings. I will present Hong Kong Buddhism as a construct of modernity, particularly in its emphasis on tradition. 'Modern Buddhism' shapes how Buddhists in the city reflect on their religion and their being in the world. The latter is reflected in how Hong Kong Buddhists responded to the 2014 Umbrella Movement. Although in essence the Umbrella Movement was a political movement seeking universal suffrage, it indirectly highlighted the importance of religion in the everyday lives of Hong Kong middle class residents. While some Buddhists went to the protest sites, others stayed at home to meditate, and many decided to disengage from the protests altogether. While different in terms of civic engagement, there is significant similarity in these narratives regarding the perception of how to act as 'good' Buddhists. By analysing the civic actions of my informants, I am able to shed light on the unique ways Hong Kong Buddhism becomes a meaningful rubric for guiding my informants and helping them understand their place in Hong Kong and in the world.

Paper short abstract:

This paper proposes a system for integrating Buddhisms within the rubric of practice. It emphasizes the creative, doctrine-flexible, and stubbornly-pragmatic ways in which local priests and practitioners try to use their temple resources for is considered to be the greater good.

Paper long abstract:

Experimental Buddhisms

From Myanmar to Hamburg and from Japan to New York, the physical distances and cultural differences between types of Buddhisms are profound in historical and contemporary settings. This paper proposes a conceptual structure to integrate diverse Buddhist-types into a single category, one that is flexible in how it works yet also accurate in pinning activities to a combination of sangha and community. "Experimental Buddhisms" emphasizes the creative, doctrine-flexible, and stubbornly-pragmatic ways in which local priests and practitioners try to use their temple resources for the greater good. In particular, "experimental Buddhisms" explores the means and methods by which people research, test, and then revise religious ideas and practices that advance social welfare, social activism, temple-sangha innovations, and similar constructs. In this regard, we see how Buddhisms and other religions around the globe have had to grapple with the rapidly changing landscapes in which they exist, reworking themselves in an effort to remain relevant in a global milieu of social disruption, increasing inequalities, and environmental damage. "Experimental Buddhisms" shows how Buddhist leaders and practitioners are experimenting with such challenges by imagining and initiating alternative and innovative paths to human welfare. Examples will be shown from the author's own research in Japan and elsewhere in SE and South Asia, and the research of the panellists.

Paper short abstract:

Systematic violence against religious minorities in Buddhist majority states in recent years raises crucial questions about Buddhism and violence. What has the Anthropology of Buddhism to offer to our understanding of 'Buddhist violence'?

Paper long abstract:

The civil war in Sri Lanka, the violence in Southern Thailand and the recent waves of anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka and Myanmar, raise questions about how we are to understand Buddhist engagements with violence. Taking as its departure monastic engagement with the military during the Sri Lankan civil war as well as Burmese monastic engagement with Tatmadaw soldiers during the Rohingya crisis in 2017, this paper seeks to explore to what extent the anthropology of religion/Buddhism can offer new insights into scholarly as well as public debates about Buddhism and violence. For long, such debates focused on 'Buddhist violence' as 'un-Buddhist', that is, as a norm-deviation from 'true' Buddhism. More recently, public as well as academic debate has rendered Buddhism 'as violent as any other religion' without offering any substantive analysis of how this might be the case, or how Buddhists themselves might justify or rationalize the use of violence. Rather than investigating what Buddhist texts say about the use of military means, an anthropological approach to Buddhism and violence would explore the ways in which Buddhist monks and nuns act in relation to violence and war, and moreover, how they relate to institutions of violence like the military. Finally, by moving beyond any radical deconstruction of the categories of 'Buddhism' and 'violence', this paper seeks to explore to what extent the Anthropology of Religion/Buddhism - ethnography and ritual theory in particular - might offer useful tools for further theorizing about the relationship between Buddhism and violence.

Paper short abstract:

In this contribution, I would like to reconsider the ensuing formation of a new Buddhist ultra-nationalist movement (Mabatha) led by monks, claiming a domination on the defence of religion in Burma and obliterating any more temperate position as not truly Buddhist.

Paper long abstract:

I have long been confronted to the 'two religions' explanation proposed by Melford Spiro to resolve the tension between his ethnography of what he termed Burmese Supernaturalism (1967) and Buddhism's imagining of that time. I positioned my research on spirit worship in spirit mediums circles as a kind of subaltern stance on the Burmese religious field giving access to the recurrent processes through which mainstream Buddhism was incessantly separated (or purified) from other domains of religious action composing the whole religious field to maintain Buddhism's hegemony that is Buddhism's imagining as distinctively 'good'.

In March 2013, at the height of the 969 anti-Muslim campaign led by some Sangha members, a series of violent episodes against Muslim populations burst out. This irruption of violence was truly disruptive in the context of expectations of the new transitional politics experienced in Myanmar since 2011. The field was suddenly overload with discourses of 'good' versus 'bad' religions (Buddhism versus Islam) reversing the actual situation of violence against Muslims with dreadful consequences. Rather than looking at the emergence of a new Buddhist ultra-nationalist movement (Mabatha) in terms of 'truer' or less so Buddhism, I would like to re-think it as a case in point of processes of religious delineation involved in the maintaining of Buddhism's hegemony in a situation of political transition - that is processes of imposing a discourse of Buddhism as distinctively 'good'.