Description

Over the last ten years, Buddhist monks and activist organisations have played an increasingly visible role in South and Southeast Asia. While not an entirely new phenomenon, this new upsurge appears to have unique and alarming features. These include a growing climate of violence, the increasing use of law and policy in the exclusion of Muslim minorities and the spread of social media and other technologies alternately used to mobilise, educate, communicate and incite. This ‘new Buddhicization’ of political life comes at a time of renewed or continued autocratic and populist tendencies in the politics of Theravada majority countries. Scholars have responded to these trends, but largely without addressing them holistically, institutionally and comparatively.

This interactive and conversation-oriented workshop—led by scholars with expertise in Buddhism, politics and law in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand respectively—aims to map out a path forward for researching the ‘new Buddhicization’ of public life in the region. This research programme would seek to identify new patterns, processes and problems that ought to be the focus of scholarship, moving beyond investigations into the motivations and activities of individual monks or groups to ask broader comparative questions about the structural conditions that enable or accelerate the processes described above. We invite colleagues with related interests and expertise to provide feedback on this programme in its early stages.

For example, how are the current dynamics different from previous moments of politicised Buddhism in the region? What trends or patterns can be found in the countries’ legal, political and social systems and how have Buddhist actors worked to influence institutional changes? What historical factors—premodern, colonial, postcolonial, etc.— seem relevant or determinative? What features of Buddhist ecclesiastical organisation and governance enable or discourage the rise of groups like Ma Ba Tha or Bodu Bala Sena? Under what conditions have Buddhist pressure groups been particularly successful (or not) across the Bay of Bengal? Are there key features of Buddhist political philosophy or tropes of Buddhist literature that appear prominently in the speeches given by prominent monks? What new methodologies will be important in considering these new trends? What gaps exist in currently available data that would enable more robust comparisons and analysis over time? What blind spots have been left by existing scholarship?

Tomas Larsson is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge, and Fellow of St John’s College. Tomas has a PhD in Government from Cornell University. He is the author of Land and Loyalty: Security and the Development of Property Rights in Thailand, published by Cornell University Press in 2012. In recent years his research has increasingly focused on religion and politics, and especially on various aspects of state regulation of Buddhism in Southeast Asia, resulting in a number of publications in journals such as International Political Science Review, Modern Asian Studies, and Journal of Law and Religion.

Benjamin Schonthal is Associate Professor of Buddhism and Asian Religions at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he is also Associate Dean (International) for the Humanities Division. He received his Ph.D. in the field of History of Religions at the University of Chicago, where his dissertation received the 2013 Law & Society Association Dissertation Award. Ben’s work examines the intersections of religion, law and politics in late-colonial and contemporary Southern Asia, with a particular focus on Buddhism and law in Sri Lanka. His research appears in The Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, the International Journal of Constitutional Law, Journal of the American Academy of Religions and other places. Ben is the author of Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law, appeared with Cambridge University Press in 2016. His current research project, supported by the Royal Society of New Zealand, looks at the interactions of state law and Buddhist monastic law in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Southern Asia.

Matthew J. Walton is an Assistant Professor in Comparative Political Theory in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Previously, he was the inaugural Aung San Suu Kyi Senior Research Fellow in Modern Burmese Studies at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. His research focuses on religion and politics in Southeast Asia, with a special emphasis on Buddhism in Myanmar. Matt’s first book, Buddhism, Politics, and Political Thought in Myanmar, was published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press. His articles on Buddhism, ethnicity, politics and political thought in Myanmar have appeared in Politics & Religion, Journal of Burma Studies, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Journal of Contemporary Buddhism, Buddhism, Law & Society, and Asian Survey. Matt was P-I for an ESRC-funded 2-year research project entitled “Understanding ‘Buddhist nationalism’ in Myanmar” and was a co-founder of the Myanmar Media and Society project and of the Burma/Myanmar blog Tea Circle.