Process, Place, and Theory: Some Challenges of Multi-Sited Fieldwork on Buddhism in China Today (seminar)

Prof. Gareth Fisher (University of Siracuse)

Abstract:

This seminar will explore the challenges of transitioning from a traditional anthropological place-based study of a single temple site in Beijing and its lay Buddhist converts to a multi-sited exploration of the process of new Buddhist temple building throughout China. Multi-sited fieldwork presents challenges in terms of (1) following a process that is dynamically unfolding in different times and places, (2) gaining access to conduct fieldwork at a number of different religious sites, and (3) arriving at a theoretical framework that connects together a fragmented collection of disparate findings that have mostly been arrived at by following unrelated leads. Through an analysis of these experiences, we will explore together the merits of both single-sited and multi-sited fieldwork with respect to Chinese Buddhism and the study of religion more broadly.

Speaker Biography

Gareth Fisher received his PhD in socio-cultural anthropology from the University of Virginia. He is currently Associate Professor of Religion at Syracuse University. His research concerns the revival of Buddhism in 21st century China, focusing on two main projects. The first of these explores how laid-off workers in China’s capital Beijing during the early 2000s converted to Buddhism to gain new moral purpose in society. The second focuses on how urban-based lay practitioners and monastics construct new temples throughout the country as places to enact their moral visions for social reform. Fisher’s From Comrades to Bodhisattvas: Moral Dimensions of Lay Buddhist Revival in Contemporary China (University of Hawaii Press, 2014) is the first book length study of Han Chinese Buddhism in the post-Mao period.

Organiser: SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies

Contact email: yl33@soas.ac.uk

Sponsor: The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation