Author: Melford E. Spiro
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351530372
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Though the people of Burma, now called Myanmar, are formally Buddhist, their folk religion a type of animism or supernaturalism is so unlike classical Buddhism that it seems contradictory. For years scholars of religion and anthropology have debated the questions: Do these folk beliefs make up a separate religious system? Or is there a subtle merging of supernaturalism and Buddhism, a kind of syncretism? In either case, how exactly does folk religion fit into the overall religious pattern? Melford Spiro's Burmese Supernaturalism has been one of the major works in this debate, both for its position on the "two religions" question and for its arguments concerning the psychological basis of religion. The book begins with an introduction to the study of supernaturalism. The next section of the work covers various types of supernaturalism, including witches, ghost, and demons. Other areas of discussion include supernaturally caused illness and its treatment, the shaman, the exorcist, and the relationship between supernaturalism and Buddhism. In the introduction to this expanded edition Spiro further develops the underlying logic of his argument and evaluates the most recent contributions to the field of the anthropology of religion. Burmese Supernaturalism is an intriguing study and will provide insightful reading for anthropologists, sociologists, theologians, as well as those interested in supernaturalism in Burma (Myanmar) and other cultures.
Author: Joseph Cheah
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199843155
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 191
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Book Description
While academic and popular studies of Buddhism have often neglected race as a factor of analysis, the issues concerning race and racialization have remained not far below the surface of the wider discussion among ethnic Buddhists, converts, and sympathizers regarding representations of American Buddhism and adaptations of Buddhist practices to the American context. In Race and Religion in American Buddhism, Joseph Cheah provides a much-needed contribution to the field of religious studies by addressing the under-theorization of race in the study of American Buddhism. Through the lens of racial formation, Cheah demonstrates how adaptations of Buddhist practices by immigrants, converts and sympathizers have taken place within an environment already permeated with the logic and ideology of whiteness and white supremacy. In other words, race and religion (Buddhism) are so intimately bounded together in the United States that the ideology of white supremacy informs the differing ways in which convert Buddhists and sympathizers and Burmese ethnic Buddhists have adapted Buddhist religious practices to an American context. Cheah offers a complex view of how the Burmese American community must negotiate not only the religious and racial terrains of the United States but also the transnational reach of the Burmese junta. Race and Religion in American Buddhism marks an important contribution to the study of American Buddhism as well as to the larger fields of U.S. religions and Asian American studies.
Author: Jacob Pandian
Publisher: Vedams eBooks (P) Ltd
ISBN: 9788179360057
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Author: Carlos Sardina Galache
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1788733231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 449
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Book Description
A first-hand account of the complex, bloody history of Myanmar and the origins of the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingyas In 2011, Myanmar embarked in a democratic transition from a brutal military rule that culminated four years later, when the first free election in decades saw a landslide for the party of celebrated Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. Yet, even as the international community was celebrating a new dawn, old wars were raging in the northern borderlands. A crisis was emerging in western Arakan state where the regime intensified its oppression of the vulnerable Muslim Rohingya community. By 2017, the conflict had escalated into a military onslaught against the Rohingya that provoked the most desperate refugee crisis of our times, as over 750,000 of them fled their homes to neighbouring Bangladesh. In The Burmese Labyrinth, journalist Carlos Sardiña Galache gives the in depth story of the country. Burma has always been an uneasy balance between multiple ethnic groups and religions. He examines the deep roots behind the ethnic divisions that go back prior to the colonial period, and so shockingly exploded in recent times. This is a powerful portrait of a nation in perpetual conflict with itself.
Author: Thant Myint-U
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521799140
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 300
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Book Description
Burma has often been portrayed as a timeless place, a country of egalitarian Buddhist villages, ruled successively by autocratic kings, British colonialists and, most recently, a military dictatorship. The Making of Modern Burma argues instead that many aspects of Burmese society today, from the borders of the state to the social structure of the countryside to the very notion of a Burmese identity, are largely the creations of the nineteenth century - a period of great change - away from the Ava-based polity of early modern times, and towards the 'British Burma' of the 1900s. The book provides a sophisticated and much-needed account of the period, and as such will be an important resource for policy makers and students as a basis for understanding contemporary politics and the challenges of the modern state. It will also be read by historians interested in the British colonial expansion of the nineteenth century.
Author: Gustaaf Houtman
Publisher: ILCAA
ISBN: 4872977483
Category : Buddhism
Languages : en
Pages : 335
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Book Description
An examination of the current political crisis in Burma, and in particular its Buddhist and socio-psychological aspects.
Author: Michael A. Aung-Thwin
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 0824880080
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
Pagan: The Origin of Modern Burma offers major contributions in three areas: the manner in which it integrates original, indigenous source material with social science theory; the significant association it makes between religion and the economy of redistribution; and the model it provides for the rise and decline of a major Buddhist kingdom in Southeast Asia. This is an important book for Southeast Asia scholars and Burma specialists. It will be standard reference work for historians, social scientists, and philologists with an interest in Southeast Asia. Readers interested in general issues of church and state, religion and society, as well as those more specifically concerned with historic and institutional Buddhism will find it a valuable work.
Author: Melford E. Spiro
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
ISBN: 9781412817288
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 294
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Book Description
The studies collected in this volume represent Spiro's contention that despite marked differences, non-Western peoples are "brother," not "other," and that the opportunity to construct a genuine cross-cultural science with commanding universals remains compelling. Melford E. Spiro is the author.
Author: Michel Picard
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319562304
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
This volume investigates various processes by which world religions become localized, as well as how local traditions in Southeast Asia and Melanesia become universalized. In the name of modernity and progress, the contemporary Southeast Asian states tend to press their populations to have a ‘religion,' claiming that their local, indigenous practices and traditions do not constitute religion. Authors analyze this ‘religionization,’ addressing how local people appropriate religion as a category to define some of their practices as differentiated from others, whether they want to have a religion or are constrained to demonstrate that they profess one. Thus, ‘religion’ is what is regarded as such by these local actors, which might not correspond to what counts as religion for the observer. Furthermore, local actors do not always concur regarding what their religion is about, as religion is a contested issue. In consequence, each of the case studies in this volume purposes to elucidate what gets identified and legitimized as ‘religion’, by whom, for what purpose, and under what political conditions.
Author: Robert L. Winzeler
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0759124418
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 323
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Book Description
In this overview of popular religion in Southeast Asia, Robert L. Winzeler offers an interpretative look at the nature of today’s indigenous religious traditions as well as Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity and conversion. He focuses not on religion as it exists in books, doctrine, theology, and among elites and dominant institutions but rather in the lives, beliefs, and practices of ordinary people. Popular Religion in Southeast Asia employs a broad view of religion as involving not just the usual Western notions of faith but also supernatural belief in general, magic, sorcery, and practical concerns such as healing, personal protection, and success in business. Case studies and concrete examples flesh out the discussion, demonstrating how popular religion relates to historical and contemporary social, cultural, political, and economic developments in the region.
