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Re-Fusing Ethnicity and Religion: an Experiment on Tibetan Grounds
Ethnizität und Religion: ein tibetisches Experiment
[journal article]
Abstract "The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic of China. Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding 'splittism' - especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility ag... view more
"The relation between ethnicity and religion has had a troubled history in the People's Republic of China. Conflating religious practice with ethnic culture is considered to carry the risk of breeding 'splittism' - especially in Tibet and Xinjiang. While in the post-Mao era the outright hostility against religion has given way to a religious revival, keeping religion and (nationality) politics separate has remained a major concern for the Chinese Communist Party. Religion is supposed to be a private matter that does not interfere with politics. Against this backdrop, a recent phenomenon in the Tibet Autonomous Region is all the more remarkable: the (re-)fusion of ethnicity and religion under the label of cultural heritage and its protection. This paper approaches this officially endorsed re-fusion ethnographically and examines its wider implications. I argue that endorsing religion as an attribute of Tibetan heritage corresponds to the concept of defining public spaces and events in which religious practice is legitimate and expected. Simultaneously, religious practices outside these dedicated spaces and events become even more problematic, leading to everyday Buddhist practices, such as circumambulation, being seen as (and performed as) political acts." (author's abstract)... view less
Keywords
ethnicity; religion; Tibet; Buddhism; convent; tradition; China; Far East; developing country; Asia
Classification
Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology, Ethnosociology
Sociology of Religion
Document language
English
Publication Year
2014
Page/Pages
p. 181-204
Journal
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 43 (2014) 2
ISSN
1868-1026
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed