L’inattendu du terrain
Based on a reflexive perspective on my ethnographic study, in this article I examine the reconfiguration processes of the Buddhist Academy of Putuoshan, where Buddhist monks and nuns are trained. Located off Shanghai, the island of Putuoshan is a major pilgrimage site in Chinese Buddhism. Since the...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | fra |
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Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative
2023-06-01
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| Series: | Ateliers d'Anthropologie |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ateliers/17500 |
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| Summary: | Based on a reflexive perspective on my ethnographic study, in this article I examine the reconfiguration processes of the Buddhist Academy of Putuoshan, where Buddhist monks and nuns are trained. Located off Shanghai, the island of Putuoshan is a major pilgrimage site in Chinese Buddhism. Since the 1980s, it has undergone profound changes under the influence of local redevelopment policies promoted nearly forty years ago at the beginning of the post-Maoist era, in order to rebuild monasteries, restart pilgrimage activities, and favour tourism. In this particularly dynamic microcosm, one finds inhabitants side-by-side with travellers, clerics, soldiers, political authorities, and tourism companies. For the past few years, a group of academics from Shanghai have been staying at the site regularly; they have taken an active part in the academy’s activities, initially as teachers of Classical Chinese, then as involved researchers. Through an analysis of the unexpected reversal in the relationship that I established with them—initially perceiving them as colleagues only to later discover fieldwork interlocutors in them—I show how their role within the academy is increasingly mobilised by the clerics to conceive the future of Putuoshan. |
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| ISSN: | 2117-3869 |