Buddhists in Modern Southeast Asia

Abstract

This article contrasts the study of Southeast Asian Buddhist social and political movements and institutions (ecclesiastical, colonial, royal, or governmental) with the study of individuals who are recreating Buddhism outside of the various national Sangha organizations and political structures. The power of the state to control nuns, monks, and even lay expression is often over emphasized in modern scholarship. Until recently, the agency and creativity of individual Buddhists is often overlooked. Therefore, in brief summary for students, I want to focus on subjects that have often been neglected in the study of Buddhism in Southeast Asia. I am interested in the ways individual Buddhists make meaning, display this ever‐changing understanding to others, and continually and mutually re‐make society and its explanations. Instead of looking at the epistemic characteristics of macro‐level culture or religion or the ‘trait geographies’ of a people, I am concerned with the ‘practical reasoning and reflexive accounts that people use on a daily basis and that make social life an ongoing practical accomplishment’ [J. McDaniel, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand , University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2008, p. 250; I. F. Silber, European Journal of Social Theory 6 (2003) 429]. I will be trying to temper any macro‐sociological speculative analysis with the explanations and actions of individual agents while always emphasizing that agents are in situated in highly specific relationships.