Book review: Mediating the global: Expatria’s forms and consequences in Kathmandu
Hindman, H. (2013). Mediating the global: Expatria’s forms and consequences in Kathmandu. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press
‘Mediating the global: Expatria’s forms and consequences in Kathmandu’ is an engaging monograph portraying expatriates as globalization’s middlemen. The book explores historically the expatriate scene in Kathmandu over a period of six years (1994 to 2000), pointing out changes in overseas work relationships, shifts in the local situation in Nepal and in expatriate sending countries along wider global alterations in work, employment and gender.
Building upon the work of Malkki and Appadurai the author coins the concept of Expatria which she sees as ‘a network of association of elite overseas work’ (p.11) created between career diplomats, professional aid workers, businesspeople, professionals mostly working as volunteers and consultants living abroad. Although global in expanse, Expatria has the characteristics of a small town while expatriates live provincial lives, the author insists. Expatriates experience continuous geographical displacement surmounted by social coherence, dependence on (similar) institutional and bureaucratic frameworks and a life centred continuously around labour, wherever they are on the globe.
The first part of the book presents ‘package expatriates’ (p.11) in their ‘typical form’ (idem) and is a story of rules and institutions governing expatriate employment. Global, transcultural and above-local models of labour fail due to specific and unaccounted for circumstances. General measures remain in contrast with everyday realities of living in Kathmandu, the author demonstrates. These measures are furthermore colonial in nature, the author argues: expatriate practices in Nepal can be tracked back to colonial times, British governance in India having also made use of family units with gendered division of space and employment of locals in the household as a tool of governance. The second part of the book focuses on changes such as global shifts in attitude towards work and gender. Looking at employer tests of cultural competency the author pinpoints how in the global game of distribution some differences matter more than others: for example race is considered of utmost importance while discussions of culture often exclude power, history and belief. Besides, as employers and institutions start preferring the single white-male-international citizen model of employment, expatriates with families fall in disgrace. This model of employment changes at its turn institutions dealing with expats and inspires a decline in both women in positions of power and in the number of non-white expatriates.
Throughout the book the author points out the less rosy side of being part of Expatria. The unending packing and moving reconfigures significant relations, drawing spouses and children into the sphere of the employer while a system of compensation is designed to make the worker truly feel at home. Although these forms of intervention are meant to reduce stress, they in fact create new concerns and new problems through ‘the displacement of links of caring’ (p.67): a double shift of labour for women who try to both ameliorate the difficulties of living abroad and to address the difficulties of living under a ‘regime of accountability’ (idem). Besides, the inclusion of the family into the work sphere as the employer takes over responsibilities such as housing and schooling creates surveillance and regulation of behaviour along the construction of (new) norms about what constitutes a proper family.
Besides the problematic relationship between expats and their employer, global changes in employment patterns have created even more challenges. A preference for subcontracting enhances distance between the ‘problems’ and the people who address them. The lack of contact between the field and managers ensures squandering knowledge and resources, while short-term projects make the local population wonder ‘what are the crazy foreigners going to come up with next ‘ (p.6). People hired to do a job have shorter contracts and are seldom interested in the context of the country they are delegated to. Also, changes in the language and terminology of aid programs due to fast turnout in governmental and NGO proposals and ‘bids’ from subcontractors ensure a superficial proliferation of buzzwords which have little to do with actual local circumstances.
The author not only places expatriate life in perspective but also considers the actual impact of the development work and expatriate life as lacking efficiency. Her critique reaches also the hierarchy of nations and cultures implied in the expatriate model. These positions make the book an engaging read. However, due to a lack of thorough comparison, the book remains a mere sketch of changes in expatriate life in Kathmandu between 1994 and 2000. Published 13 years later than the last date of fieldwork the book remains mainly an instrument for historical comparison.
Book review: Divine rulers in a secular state
Kallinen, Timo (2016) Divine rulers in a secular state. Finnish Literature Society (SKS): Helsinki, 205p., Pb. 42 e., ISBN 9789522226822
Louis Dumont’s interest in the fragmentation of traditional societies permeates this book that builds upon anthropological fieldwork to investigate the importance of secular and modern frames of meaning in contemporary Ghana. Kallinen is concerned with the way the distinction of politics from religion, a specifically secular western construction, restructured a holistic and undifferentiated society such as that of the Asante. In line with Talal Asad, the author considers secularism an instrument of statecraft that implies the acceptance of a modern worldview and its moral concerns. In this sense the book is theoretically contributing to the anthropology of secularism and to scholarly debates on the effects of colonialism in Africa. A detailed account of social transformations, it elaborates in minutious detail on changes in the institution of chieftainship, seen either in ‘traditional political’ or in ‘pagan’ religious terms.
In traditional Asante society religion was all-encompassing, the author argues. All functions of a chief stemmed from connecting to the spirit world through sacrifice while chiefly power was used to both ‘immortalize’ the present and make it valuable. The value system that legitimated the operations of a chief was religious while the distribution of rights and privileges of a chief was a ritual process with strong political and economic dimensions. Power, both religious and political, became social through reciprocal oaths of allegiance between the village elders and the chief. Thus the political sought to enhance, perpetuate and diffuse the greatness of ancestors, through various means.
With the onset of the colonial order this traditional order dissolved and the secularization process, understood as the structural separation of social spheres began. Christian converts refused to obey pagan leaders and moved to new communities centred around mission houses, challenging the supremacy of the chiefs. But chiefs served the colonial power as an administrative arm and had to maintain their position, thus were transformed into purely political authorities, thus redefining and minimalizing their religious function. Thus, chieftainship and the role of religion changed radically in a short time at the effect of colonial rule, the author argues.
However, in the post-colonial period, as chieftains became part of the Ghanaian nationalistic project, their political role changed into that of keepers of national culture. Local customs being picked up by tourism and chiefs getting involved in World Bank legitimacy projects redefined the place of tradition and culture in contemporary Ghana. Chieftaincy, considered a traditional custom, became a distinctively Ghanaian cultural symbol, escaping its religious or political connotations. At present religion is very much present in the collective sphere: witchcraft is still a hot issue, although the logic of human rights is used both to condemn and protect people accused of witchcraft. Furthermore, religious phenomena resurface in intriguing ways, as the popularity of witchcraft accusations related to fast material gains become commonplace in public and media discourse in contemporary Ghana. As such post-colonialism involves intricate negotiations that are not only to be seen as oscillations between democracy and autocracy, consensus and coercion, transparency and secrecy, but as hybrid forms, created through individual and collective agency, which respond to specific settings and concrete demands. Secularization is thus a process by no means complete.
Written from an in-depth knowledge of contemporary Ghana, this book is an engaging account of an African country deeply transformed by colonialism, where the process of change is still ongoing. However, I wonder if the rather romantic vision of a traditional society presented in the book does not simplify reality through the same western category of religion that is criticised as a colonial category of power. Furthermore, the tripartite distinction between traditional, colonial and post-colonial societies seems to work in contradiction to the argument of continuous diversity and hybridity of practice, making the wealth of empirical detail not immediately clear in theoretical terms. Thus some questions remain unanswered: Was colonialism or the plurality of religions what challenged the religious functions of the chiefs? Are hybrids occurring at disjunctions of history, when the decoupling of modernity and national identity seem to contradict each other or are they accidents in a linear process of transformation between dual categories? Besides, if we accept the conceptual category of post-colonial, can we not talk about the post-secular, as the author seems to suggest that the two process go hand in hand?
Book review: Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe in Past and Present Times
Krech, Volkhard, & Steinicke, M. (eds.). 2010, Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe in Past and Present Times. Leiden: Brill, viii + 534pp., ISBN 978-9004185005 €160.00/$209.00 (hb).
This engaging book documents the conference ‘Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe’ which took place in 2008 at Ruhr University Bochum. It contains a section dedicated to the formation of major religious traditions through inter-religious, a part dealing with contacts between religious traditions at the time of their expansion, a part dealing with the notion of religion and religious semantics cross-culturally and a part dedicated to religion in the era of globalization. The book’s structure is finely attuned to its approach: a historical overview of influences and causality links between what we call the main religious traditions. The theoretical part of this book, which introduces the core approach of its subsequent chapters, is especially engaging and relevant: it critically summarizes basic assumptions of past and present research of religions and proposes a revised, context sensitive approach.
The book begins with the crucial question of what is considered as religion today. This question is particularly relevant in the light of the dynamics of the hermeneutic circle: how to study something without an a-priori definition of what one is looking for, especially when one knows that diversity is bound to be found. Another important question is how to indentify change, distortion and otherness while dealing with the unavoidable tension between divergent material research and the need for systematization. As a response, the volume proposes that while notions and concepts without empiricism are empty, empiricism without concepts is blind (p. 20), which I consider a good starting point.
In current work on religion three positions are prevalent according to Krech (p. 16-19): (1) the staged approach of research on religion, which sees a sort of ‘historical evolution’ among different religious forms, considering some as primitive and others as developed, (2) thinking of world-religions as superior religious formations and (3) considering rituals (along with the sacred, the taboo and the totem) as the core of religious practice. While these points are often taken for granted while researching religion, their position could rightfully be critically reviewed, according to Krech.
A model based on Bourdieu’s concept of fields is proposed as a viable approach for current study on religion. In this model religion would be seen as arising and taking effect at the centre of four dimensions: knowledge, experience, materiality and actions, which are also, rightfully, to be considered as viable dimensions of inquiry. Furthermore, as a distinctive trait, religion expresses or deals with the transcendent, through reflecting cultural conditions. Religion remains in distinction from other rationalities and as such it could be best identified as the ways to deal with ‘what is considered unavailable and inescapable’ (p. 23). However, due to synchronic and diachronic contact, semantic extensions of what religion is exist in parallel with processes of institutionalization. Although temporary, these extensions are crucial to understand. However, they should be not reified or seen as definitive.
Although extremely attractive in terms of theoretical relevance, there are several flaws in this model. First, a focus on processes and interactions leaves unexplored questions of agency and causality. Second, while thinking in terms of fields allows for studying interactions in and of religious fields (p. 49), it is difficult to see how the boundaries, even if fluid, of these fields could be theoretically and empirically justified. Although this allows space in what the abstraction of ‘religion’ and its content are concerned, the writer of this essay doubts the usefulness of these frames unless some sort of comparison, in order to understand what is changing and what, if anything, remains stable, is allowed.
Although this review has foremost engaged with the theoretical part of this book, which can be thought provoking both scholars of religion and those with a more general interest in contextual comparative studies, the empirical chapters of this book should not be neglected. The wide range of approaches, themes and geographical areas covered make an engaging read for area scholars as well as anthropologists, ensuring a diverse and inspiring read.
Book review: Religion and Secularity: Transformations and Transfers of Religious Discourses in Europe and Asia
Eggert, Marion, and Lucian Hölscher (eds.). 2013, Religion and Secularity: Transformations and Transfers of Religious Discourses in Europe and Asia. Boston: Brill, 286pp., ISBN 978-90-04-25132-8, €111,00/$141.00 (hb)
In the beginning of the 90’s Talal Asad, in his influential ‘Genealogies of religion’ has shown how the interconnection of liberal politics, a modern world view and changes in ideas about religion have contributed to a specific understanding of secularization. With religion, secularity and their relationship as its focus, this book follows in Asad’s steps and further investigates how ideas about the secular and the religious have developed in Germany, France, Israel, Turkey, Iran, Sri Lanka, Japan, China and Korea, convincingly refuting euro-centric theories.
Politics contributes to the formation of secularity as Lapidot-Firilla shows: not the rejection of religion brought about secularity in Turkey, but secularity was needed to ensure Turkey’s position in Europe. Similarly, Kramer explains how defining Shinto as religious or a-religious served the purpose of claiming Japanese modernity. Isomae, also discussing Japan, shows how the term religion was initially being related to public morality. As public morality became linked to the public realm, religion became public: the emperor as a ‘living kami’ was the pinnacle of the state. Likewise, Le Grand explains how in France not laïcité but the passion surrounding the debate is unique: she distinguishes at least three ‘schools’ of laïcité, each trying to define and appropriate the term for itself. Similarly, His-Yuan looks at Confucianism as linked with the fallen empire, showing how a declining intellectual elite mobilized a valuable symbolic asset transforming religion into national religion and then into non-religion, to suit the political changes history brought about. However, when politics are involved specific balances of power can also be expected. Bretfeld, talking about Sri Lanka, shows how the secularization of Buddhism has resulted in its hegemony and especially state protected position. All these examples point out that causes and influences are nuanced and but often also double sided.
Most contributions engage with and confirm Asad’s theories: the secular’s change over time has an impact on religion as Sukman shows with a vivid portrait of interdependence in modern Korea. Similarly, Hölscher, examining transformations of the religious field in Germany, points out that the religious-secular dichotomy as understood today is a fairly recent phenomenon, a product of its age. Along the same lines, Roetz, in a critique of Taylor’s “A secular age”, shows that European Enlightenment is not exclusively the product of European history, but rather an intercultural phenomenon. He highlights the influence of Confucian ideas such as natural power, rationality and critique and individual autonomy that came to Europe through Jesuit missions.
Two contributions are mainly linguistic. Fischer investigates the Hebrew terms for secularist/secular and explains how the view of each aspect of life as having a religious meaning shapes both state institutions and their political status quo. Mozaffari, talking about Iran, shows how until the first decade of the 21st century with no consensus existed for a Persian word for secular/secularity. Finally, in an interesting theoretical contribution, Krech presents possible indicators for measuring secularization.
The book presents a wide range of empirical studies, with geographical and historical variability, aiming successfully at clarifying concepts and their fluctuating meanings. They add flesh to Asad’s theories, in a perspective that is both broad geographically and rich historically, highlighting the wide diversity of approaches towards secularity. The foremost evidence for what secularity implies, the authors concur, is to come from the social, political and cultural reality indicated by the terminology used by each linguistic community. Thus, using a socio-historical and semantic approach, the contributions tackle conceptual matrixes, observing variations and particularities. For the theoretically minded religious studies scholar, this book might be a less challenging read, however, an appreciating audience will be found in area and globalization studies, linguists and anthropology.
Book review: Testing pluralism; Globalizing Belief, Localizing Gods
Giordan, Giuseppe, & Swatos, W.H. Jr. (eds.). 2013, Testing pluralism; Globalizing Belief, Localizing Gods. Leiden: Brill, 235 pp., ISBN 9789004254473, €105.00/$133.00 (hb).
This volume of the Religion and the Social Order series draws a picture of diversity in faith as related to globalization, increased mobility and diaspora formation. In its introduction, the volume questions the thesis of secularization (in the sense of overall decrease in the importance of religion), pointing out that exceptions of many kinds exist. Individual faith and collective religious life is refreshed, even if temporarily, by populations of migrant origin, as a number of contributions state. Aged Catholic constituencies in Australia for example, benefit from migrants coming from non-western countries, migrants who both care about attending mass and are overall rather orthodox in their religious views (Dixon). In a similar way, religious minorities diversify the religious landscape of Italy with Orthodoxy, challenging the present equilibrium between the Catholic Church and the State (Giordan). Moreover, diversity in Italy appears not only between different religions but also within them, as in the case of Sikkism, where caste differentiation remains important (Bertolani). An inferior socio-economic position also influences one’s faith content: in the case of the Shas movement in Israel, the argument about the movement’s orthodoxy of practice targets foremost a more outstanding social position (Feldman). Furthermore, as global communities and transnational connections make a difference in religious life, some communities, such as protestant groups in Mexico can be said to bask in the advantages of a glocal situation (de la Torre and Gutierrez Zuniga).
However, not only migrants contribute to diversification, but also new movements within Catholicism such as The Renewal of the Spirit help rejuvenating faith. In time, movements such as this, have their distinctive elements integrated by the Church, contributing to reframing inner and outer institutional and faith boundaries (Contiero). Institutional changes and the abandonment of traditional Christianity are also taking their course in the Anglican Church, foremost through woman’s ordination and the acceptance of homosexual unions (Swatos). To my mind, the question remains, to what extent are present inner changes calling for future even more dramatic turns and to what extent traditional faiths are to remain unchanged in their essence.
Most of the articles in this volume conclude that diversity promotes tolerance (Blasi, Kilbourne and Miller) and that plurality is overall beneficial for religion. However, as the trends for voting for Obama show, politics may have lost the clear ethnic and religious backing from before (Loach). Thus what religion means for society at large, and especially for politics is much more of a conundrum than before, I believe.
While the role of religion in social life is continuously changing, pluralism itself might be considered an implicit religion. This axiomatic stance has the advantage of opening up an intriguing line of inquiry about pluralism’s ethics, its ontology, rituals and character (Bailey). However, it remains a question what is included, but even more, what is excluded in a pluralist model. The position of life stance communities in Norway shows how the intricacies of the religious argumentation, which is at the basis of pluralism, remain contested and thus change in time, allowing different positions to be included or excluded (Reeh). Besides, the distinction between what is secular and what is religious is by now also blurred: as non-religious Italian scientists also use implicit religious concepts, this points to spiritual sensibilities which are more difficult to categorize in a secular-religious model (Sbalchiero).
An interesting read at the level of individual contributions, the book disappoints through its limited geographical coverage: one third of the contributions deal with Italy, another third with Northern America especially the US and the rest are disparate cases with little theoretical justification. Moreover the argument remains circular: diversity exists and it is rather diverse. This is also what makes the overall read a theoretically uncomfortable one; little difference is being made between pluralism and diversity throughout the contributions. All in all, this book might be of interest to students of the various religious traditions addressed in the case studies as well as those who are interested in global migration and its effects.
Book review: Exploring the postsecular: The religious, the political, and the urban
Molendijk, A. L., Beaumont, J., and Jedan, C. (eds.). 2010, Exploring the postsecular: The religious, the political, and the urban. Leiden: Brill, xviii, 406 pp., ISBN 9789004185449, €144,00/$188.00 (hb).
As a consequence to the renewed visibility of religion in the public sphere, well-known theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Charles Taylor have proposed that society’s secular character has changed to such a degree as to make space for the postsecular. This timely book thoroughly questions the usefulness of the postsecular as a concept and investigates both its content and extent.
It is uncontestable that the sacred has re-emerged in urban space and community life, and that religious groups increasingly engage in governance (Beaumont). However, it is ‘faith’ and not ‘religion’ has come to the fore (Knott). The postsecular remains a spectrum of different positions towards religion. As a matter of fact religion or spirituality might not be encouraged and postsecular ‘spaces, elements and inclinations’ may not be directly religious (McLennan). Moreover the postsecular as a concept can hardly gain legitimacy in a political climate already filled with a plurality of worldviews (Jedan). Restrains on religious reasoning remain expected, while giving religious reasons can only likely in the light of individuals offering their complete version of truth during reasoning (Sanders). As public reason is normative notion specifying the kind of arguments to be used in the public sphere, inclusion and exclusion remains a tricky process, favoring an ideal type, not religiously involved, citizen (Schuster). This all suggest that religion’s position in postsecularism is rather weak. However, neoliberal forms of governance have created space for practices which can be considered postsecular and include religion, by incorporating faith in governance mechanisms and in different practices of care, justice and hope to counterbalance individualism, consumerism and globalization (Cloke).
Modernity and the privatization of religion have not necessarily walked hand in hand: the private/public distinction and indeed postsecularity remain best considered as ideological categories (Leezenberg). Religion and politics have always been codependent and at present, religion represents the ‘salvation’ of politics in the sense of developing a sense of common, responsible collective life (Bretherton). Moreover, religious presence blows life indirectly into politics. For example, the content of neoliberal policies during the past years in the US has benefited and was partially legitimated by the rise of conservative sectarian discourse (Hackworth).
However, religions have transformed into therapeutic and aesthetic aids, leaving transcendence and religious communities more and more out of the picture. Personal religiosity serves experiencing individuality, self-interpretation and self-assertion, its foremost role being to give spiritual comfort (Gräb) as identity as a meaning making practice is crucial in a diverse and complex world (Zock). But he role of religion, especially in the urban space, must not be underestimated. Migrant churches are networks that enforce belonging and provide practical information on organizing urban life (Oosterbaan). Urbanization itself is related to religion as religious organizations both adapt and play a role in the urban environment (Molendijk). A ‘sense of presence’ or a ‘sense of awe’ can change ordinary urban places into sacred ones. Using public urban gives sacred potential to both spaces and actions, reinforcing the hybrid nature of cities (de Haardt). In the postsecular, public space is especially used for collective rituals such as festivities and acts of mourning (David Martin).
Several contributions question the usefulness of the Habermasian postsecular. In Turkey modernization has been deeply connected with westernization and a complex interaction between society, economics and politics (Özdemir Sönmez). Britain has never been as secular as it has politically claimed to be, while France has remained secular in its particular manner (Beckford), thus the postsecular as understood by Habermas does not pertain to such cases as it is both Eurocentric and linear (Bernice Martin). The same is valid for the US where the term flexible late secularism described better the state of affairs (Dias and Beaumont).
Exploring the postsecular argues for the importance of the urban arena as loci for the development of new forms of religious presence, public space use and engagement between the political and the civic. Its main focus, based on a thrilling combination of urban and religious studies, is the relationship between public religions and modernities in urban spaces, all considered the playground of the postsecular. This book is a rich and engaging read on the postsecular from a multitude of positions, of interest to readers of urban and religion sociology, geography and urban planning, religious studies, as well as contextual theology and political philosophy.
Islam and secular citizenship has been published:
Spirit worship, Tibetan Buddhism and the West
This article has been published on the Critical Religion blog on the 20th of October, 2014. Here you can find the original post: http://criticalreligion.org/2014/10/20/spirit-worship-tibetan-buddhism-and-the-west/
While waiting in the rain for His Holiness the Dalai Lama to arrive for his public lecture in Rotterdam this year, alongside the long rows of Tibetans holding ceremonial katas and singing mantras, a louder and visibly much better organized group was catching the attention of visitors through banners, flyers and slogans shouted over a sound reinforcement device. This group was by and large formed by members of the New Kadampa tradition, also known as ‘the Shugden followers’, who since the mid 70’s have made a visible presence at more events such as the one I have witnessed.
The followers of Dorje Shugden started protesting in the summer of 1996, as the Dalai Lama was visiting England. They complain about religious discrimination, the suppression of religious dissent within the Tibetan community and the persecution of those who practice the protector Dorje Shugden, the latter a matter of religious freedom. This was in response to the Dalai Lama’s repeated public stance against the practice of Shugden. The Dalai Lama’s reasons to ‘ban’ this practice were that it encourages sectarianism, that being essentially a form of spirit worship it has nothing to do with Buddhism and because this practice on the whole is not beneficial for the Tibetan community. This post discusses the dynamics of divergent opinions that lie at the core of the ‘Shugden affair’ and critically contributes to the contextualization of this controversy in global terms.
The root of the conflict centers on interpretative questions about religious practice and institutionalization (Dreyfus 1998). Dorje Shugden has the status of Dharma protector or dharmapala in Tibetan Buddhism. The history of Shugden is interwoven with that of one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the Gelugpa, and with the institution of the Dalai Lamas, who are also part of (but are not ‘head’ of, as often erroneously stated) the same Gelugpa school. The 5th Damai Lama is thought to be causally related to the very existence of Shugden: the premature death of Drakba Gyeltsen, who as a boy was not chosen as the reincarnation of the 4th Dalai Lama, transformed the latter into a spirit seeking revenge (Dreyfus 1998). This spirit was incorporated into the colourful pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism and has become especially important for what is considered a fundamentalist lineage within the Gelugpa school (Hilton, 2000). The practice and propitiation of Shugden are especially associated with Pabongka (1878-1941) and his claims of Gelugpa supremacy above the other Tibetan Buddhist schools. He was trying to uphold Gelugpa purity as a countermeasure to the then already popular Rime movement that emphasized an eclectic religious approach based on practices predominantly attributed to the Nyingmapa school (Lohrer 2009). However, the tension between this dharmapala and his followers resurfaced when the 13th Dalai Lama restricted the worship of Shugden. Only after the 13th Dalai Lama’s death in 1933 could Pabongka promote freely the practice of Shugden in order to revive the Gelug monastic order (Lohrer 2009). Pabongka’s disciple, Trijang Rinpoche (1901-1983) one of the main teachers of the present Dalai Lama, passed on the Shugden practice to him and most of the Gelugpa establishment as a ‘mainstream practice’ (Dreyfus, 1998). However, the present Dalai Lama took personal distance from this after 1975 and started to publicly advise against it after discovering its historical background. From 2008 onwards, through a referendum, Shugden devotees were separated from the rest of the Gelugpa establishment and were allocated land to build their own monasteries.
These steps have been interpreted by Shugden followers as a ban and form the basis of their claims of discrimination on the basis of ‘religion’.
However, if we follow this historical overview we can see that the apparently religious part of the controversy is tightly interwoven with its political part, which concerns the struggle of power within a religious group (fundamentalist towards modernist Gelugpas) and in relationship to other groups (Gelugpas as related to other Tibetan Buddhism schools). The core of this tension is the position and authority of the Dalai Lamas and the character of Tibetan national identity, in which Buddhism presently plays a central role. These two being interrelated, the relationship between ‘religion’ as an expression of private autonomy and its performance as ‘a symbol of national unity holds considerable potential for conflict for the institution of the Dalai Lama’(Kollmar-Paulenz, 2009). The Dalai Lama’s preference for promoting Tibetan Buddhism in general instead of promoting the Gelugpa school can be seen as a form of betrayal by the latter (Hilton, 2000). Furthermore, the present Dalai Lama is a person with many roles: he is simultaneously a ‘simple Buddhist monk’ as he loves to talk about himself, the reincarnation of Chenrezig – the bodhisattva of compassion – a Nobel peace laureate, an internationally renown advocate of the Tibetan cause and a person who until quite recently has held important positions in the Tibetan Government in Exile. Although there is no contradiction between these different roles, there is certainly tension arising at some junctures.
However, neither the tension between the different roles of the Dalai Lama, nor the unusual balance between religion and politics in the Tibetan context form the core of the Shugden controversy. Rather it is the new global context that makes the issue explosive. It is not historical tensions which feed controversies such as the ‘Shugden Affair’ rather it is the context of western values, which are taken over at a fast pace through a growing global community and a wide and opinionated and interested public, which now co-define what is truly Tibetan, who has authority and which are the worthy problems in the Tibetan community. ‘The Shugden dispute represents a battleground of views on what is meant by religious and cultural freedom’, but a disputeframed in western terms. The present Buddhist modernism, to use the words of Dreyfus, has greatly transformed both the content and the form of Tibetan Buddhism and is not an expression of its ‘timeless essence’ (Dreyfus, 2005). In this specific case the modernization of faith meant taking distance from ‘spirit-worship’ as to better portray Buddhism as a religion based on reason, contemplation and experience, having a strongly ethical basis, a non-violent approach and being a valuable resource for social action. This modernization allows forms of religious administration and institutionalization to be ethicalized through the use of elements such as lack of discrimination, equal opportunity, religious freedom, but also invites critique through the same avenues. The translation of Tibetan ideas in ‘modern’ terms make possible a distinction between cultural expressions and the essence of Buddhism, but also ensures the loss of unique cultural and religious characteristics. Maybe it is also worth mentioning here that although many Shugden followers are Tibetans, many more are westerners with a good sense of how to catch the attention of the public and media, but maybe with a less thorough understanding of the real issues at stake.
Contextualizing yoga: modern practices in a western world
This article has been published on the Critical Religion blog on the 3rd of February, 2014. Here you can find the original post: http://criticalreligion.org/2014/02/03/contextualizing-yoga-modern-practices-in-a-western-world/
For many people across the world yoga is a way of ensuring a healthy life away from sedentary habits, a way of decreasing stress and increasing general wellbeing. However, the religious or spiritual element present in the practice of yoga may scare people who are concerned about religious purity or the integrity of their beliefs. Some might believe that yoga contradicts their religion, others might think of it as devil’s work. But is modern yoga a form of spiritual or religious practice?
Yoga as encountered in the West, is foremost based on Hatha Yoga and as such places emphasis foremost on bodily postures, breathing exercises and meditation. Indeed ‘yoga, as it appears today, is a recent interpretation of an ancient practice’ (Hoyez 2007: 114) which originates from the Indian subcontinent. Because of its origins yoga has often been thought as ‘hindu’, a term that is in itself very broad.
Yoga stems from the Vedas, the holy texts composed around 1900BC, which also form the basis of three major religions: Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. Patanjali’s ‘Yoga Sutras’, dating from approximately 2000 years ago is considered the first text that distinguishes Yoga from other systems of thought and religious practice. In his book Patanjali advocates a complete and complex way of life and not only a set of physical exercises. His ‘eight limbs’ of yoga, which still inform practice today, include abstentions (development of compassion), observances (awareness of ourselves and others), bodily postures (chanelling energy), breathing practices (controlling life force), abstraction (managing the senses), concentration (focusing) and meditation (total absorption) (Alter 2005). Each school of Yoga builds upon these elements, combining and interpreting them in a specific manner.
Often thought as an elaborate form of gymnastics, modern western yoga has lost most of its original philosophical underpinnings and has taken distance from most of its religious roots. Yoga has become a western practice whose popularity has been made possible by the process of individualization and its formation of ‘new-age’ spirituality, but also by the commodification of urban wellbeing. After becoming global, yoga has become increasingly decentralized and the Indian influence has been gradually lost. We live in a time of ‘indigenous yogas’ with a baffling diversity of styles and types, often adapted to specific local circumstances (Hoyez 2007) that highlight foremost wellbeing, health and internal peace. Furthermore, emphasis is placed foremost on its physical aspects while its spiritual or religious parts are contrived, if present at all. The specific combination of these factors makes modern yoga resemble more a therapeutic practice (Hoyez 2007) than a spiritual or religious one.
However, modern yoga is a therapeutic system of bodily exercises that also voices philosophical, cultural or political concerns. Furthermore, it is experienced as an active form of changing one’s life to the better. It emphasizes on self-realization (Alter 2004, De Michelis 2004). As such, modern yoga has constructed an alternative form of being religious or spiritual which creatively picks up and repackages a few elements of the Indian traditions while combining them with specific global and local concerns. For example, in yoga discourse, the consumption of raw- and super-foods is connected as much to the formation of a healthy body, to maintaining a good world energy, contributing to fair trade and to sustaining ecological system. These concerns are both extremely varied and tailored to specific audiences: yoga games targeting children require players to perform postures imitating animals while yoga for older adults yoga will make use of props for attaining some bodily postures (Patel el al. 2011). While children yoga will ‘play’ with the ‘inner child’, older adult yoga allows one to ‘find the right energetic balance’ and ‘age youthfully’. Furthermore, yoga can be practiced as a form of union with the ‘universe’, ‘God’, ‘nature’ or ‘oneself’, depending on the inclinations and beliefs of its practitioners. Some yoga classes use a borrowed religious imaginary: the yoga mat becomes a prayer mat while some postures recall prayer. Some classes include the chanting of Hindu sutras, others refer to a ‘life force’ or ‘energy’. A session may include a greeting of ‘namaste’ or a gesture of prayer. There might be a moment of meditation or time for chanting the ‘Om’ considered as the primordial sound by both Hindus and Buddhists. While these might be considered spiritual activities, they do not come to the fore in every yoga practice. Some classes and schools of yoga may make no overt reference to spirituality at all.
Nevertheless, modern yoga makes both physical and inner, ‘spiritual’ transformation possible, as yoga practitioners explained to me. Modern yoga, they highlighted, works through the effort of the body and ends in a general feeling of ‘feeling good about myself’. Yoga practices create an awareness of the self and a possibility of directly ‘improving’ one’s life. One realizes that ‘there is something bigger out there’. One ‘learns’ what are one’s possibilities, and through repeated exercise, learns also to ‘deal with that terrible pain’ and ‘overcome one’s limits’. Yoga offers its practitioners a permission to be happy ‘as I did the best I could for myself’ but also creates the feeling of ‘being in control’ and being in touch with ‘something bigger’. However, some of the practitioners I have been talking to have not described their experience as necessarily religious or spiritual, rather as an encounter with the ‘real self’ that requires no belief, but ‘just happens’.
This baffling inner diversity of practices points out that yoga is far from being a unitary phenomenon. Although most forms of yoga have their roots in the Indian subcontinent, each different school and group works with a specific interpretation of what yoga is, tailored to the more immediate concerns of western practitioners. The religious or spiritual content of yoga classes does not only depend on each yoga school’s approach, but also on the personal aspirations and capabilities of yoga practitioners. As such, western yoga practices have a different view of spirituality and make different use of religious elements then ‘Indian’ yoga, where the ultimate goal is moksha or liberation. Furthermore, western yoga can mainly be considered as a form of physical exercise that increases general wellbeing. In order to ensure and expand the state of wellbeing and relaxation, spiritual and religious practices may be used or hinted at. However, in the context of western modernity, yoga’s goal of ultimate liberation transforms foremost into the celebration and glorification of the self.
—–
Alter, J. S. 2005. Modern medical yoga: struggling with a history of magic, alchemy and sex. Leiden: Brill.
De Michelis, E. 2005. A history of modern yoga. London: Continuum.
Hoyez, A.-C. 2007. The ‘world of yoga’: The production and reproduction of therapeutic landscapes. Social Science & Medicine. 65 (1): 112-124.
Patel, N. K., S. Akkihebbalu, S. E. Espinoza, and L. K. Chiodo. 2011. Perceptions of a Community-Based Yoga Intervention for Older Adults. Activities, Adaptation & Aging. 35 (2): 151-163.
Strauss, S. 2005. Positioning yoga balancing acts across cultures. Oxford: Berg.
Carolina Ivanescu 