Centre of Buddhist Studies
& Department of Religions and Philosophies
Dr Olivia Porter
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Key information
Key information
- Roles
- Centre of Buddhist Studies Research Associate
- Email address
- op11@soas.ac.uk
Biography
My research focuses on Tai (Shan) Buddhism practiced by communities living on the Myanmar-China border.
In 2023 I completed my PhD at King’s College London titled ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tai Zawti Buddhists of the Myanmar-China Border’, which coupled ethnographic fieldwork in Myanmar with traditional textual approaches to explore the Tai Zawti, a little-known Tai Theravada Buddhist tradition founded in the seventeenth century. Before this, I did my BA in Sanskrit with Pali at the University of Oxford and my MSc in Social Anthropology at the LSE.
Since finishing my PhD, I have lectured on Asian Religions at the University of Roehampton. I am currently the Book Reviews Editor for Contemporary Buddhism and an editorial assistant for the Yin-Cheng Journal of Contemporary Buddhism.
Research interests
My current research interests include Tai vernacular literature (lik long), particularly texts on lay morality and ethics; lay ritual practitioners, and Buddhism in the borderlands.
