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- Creators: Arizona State University
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This study offers an ethnographic examination of the marble Buddhist image trade across the Myanmar-China border since the 1980s, a previously unexamined religious-economic entanglement that transcends conventional academic boundaries between Myanmar and China, Southeast and East Asia, and Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism. Fueled by the Buddhist revival in post-Mao China and the deepening economic integration between China and Southeast Asia over the past three decades, this transborder Buddhist economy has facilitated the circulation of not only raw materials and images but also people, with Chinese workshop owners venturing into Sagyin, Myanmar, for material sourcing and Burmese artisans migrating into Ruili, China, for Buddhist image production. My study argues that this marble Buddhist image trade serves as a compelling contemporary illustration of the enduring and productive interconnectedness between Buddhism and the economy. Employing the concept of “magnificence,” which is closely linked to the material and visual qualities of Buddhist images, my research analyzes the processes of material sourcing, artisan recruitment, image polishing, and transcultural marketing within this trade to explicate how a particular form of Buddhist magnificence, derived from the purity, translucency, and luster of white marble, or white jade (Ch. baiyu) in vernacular Chinese, is religiously and economically cultivated, crafted, and promoted simultaneously. It illuminates how business practices aligned with Buddhist moral principles foster cross-ethnic economic collaboration, how the ethics of Buddhist craftsmanship as a form of soteriologically and economically meaningful labor evolves amidst transborder economic precarity, and how the circulation and marketing of marble Buddhist icon evokes changing imaginaries about Myanmar as a “Buddhist Other” among Chinese Buddhists. This study challenges the Orientalist trope that depicts the economy as a detrimental secularizing force that undermines Buddhism’s ascetic and anti-materialist essence. I argue instead that a dual emphasis that recognizes the intertwined economic and religious dimensions of contemporary Buddhist craftsmanship and material exchanges is required to better capture Buddhism as a lived tradition continuously shaped by the religious values and economic practices of its adherents.
ContributorsDeng, Beiyin (Author) / Schober, Juliane (Thesis advisor) / Rush, James (Committee member) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Since the 1980s, academics and activists attempting to explain why American evangelicals have supported politicians with controversial environmental track records—from James Watt to James Inhofe—have framed such believers as apocalyptic fatalists content to pillage Creation until Jesus raptures them to safety and destroys the Earth. Today evangelicals maintain higher levels of climate skepticism and lower levels of support for environmental legislation than other religious groups—seemingly confirming the “End Times Apathy Hypothesis.” However, the history of such Rapture-believing, premillennial evangelicals reveals surprisingly sensitive attitudes toward science, nature, and the environmental crisis that stand in stark contrast to popular depictions. Far from promoting anti-science and anti-environmental attitudes, premillennialism has historically encouraged a this-worldly interest in empirical science as believers saw the natural world as a source of revelation and sought to discern the “signs of the times.” It has also offered a flexible theological framework capable of assimilating the most dire findings by environmental scientists and meeting them with hope. Prophecy popularizers such as Billy Graham and Hal Lindsay wrote books which sold in the millions and carried with them the latest findings and predictions by environmental scientists—making them, in effect, some of the most effective science communicators of the twentieth century. Where environmental skepticism has entered evangelicalism, it has been through postmillennial Christian Reconstructionism—a movement deeply opposed to premillennialism—and its promotion of economic cornucopianism, Young Earth Creationism, Christian America historical revisionism, and organizations like the Cornwall Alliance. To make evangelicals into anti-environmentalists, these Reconstructionists first had to unmake them as premillennialists.
This interdisciplinary dissertation demonstrates how history and theology can explain evangelicals’ shifting attitudes toward environmentalism. From their early concerns over nuclear testing through their participation in the first Earth Day and up to the eve of the millennium, premillennialism drove evangelicals to take seriously the growing concerns for Creation’s condition and their present attitudes of skepticism and antagonism represent a divergence from this hitherto untold story of apocalyptic environmentalism.
ContributorsFuller, Robert Edward (Author) / Tirosh-Samuelson, Hava (Thesis advisor) / Jones, Christopher (Committee member) / Berry, Evan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2024
Description
Social scientists from many disciplines have examined trust, including trust between those with different religious affiliations, emotional antecedents of trust, and physiological correlates of trust. However, little is known about how all of these factors intersect to shape trust behaviors. The current study aimed to examine physiological responses while individuals engaged in a trust game with a religious in-group or out-group member. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions in which they were presented with the target’s profile before playing the game. In each of the conditions the target was described as either Catholic or Muslim and as someone who engaged in either costly signaling or anti-costly signaling behavior. In addition to assessing the amount of money invested as a behavioral measure of trust, physiological responses, specifically cardiac interbeat interval (IBI) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), were measured. I hypothesized that when playing the trust game with a Catholic target as opposed to a Muslim target, Christian participants would (1) report being more similar to the target, (2) trust the target more, (3) invest more money in the target, (4) have a more positive outlook on the amount invested, and (5) show greater cardiorespiratory down-regulation, reflected by increases in IBI and RSA. Findings revealed that Christian participants reported greater similarity and showed a non-significant trend toward reporting a more positive outlook on (greater confidence in/satisfaction with) their investment decision when playing a Catholic versus Muslim target. Additionally, Christian participants who played an anti-costly signaling Catholic target showed greater cardiorespiratory down-regulation (increases from baseline for IBI, reflecting slower heart rate, and increases in RSA) than Christian participants who played an anti-costly signaling Muslim target. Results from this study echo previous findings suggesting that perceived similarity may facilitate trust. Findings also are consistent with previous research suggesting that religious ingroup or outgroup membership may not be as influential in shaping trust decisions if the trustee is costly signaling; for anti-signaling, however, cardiorespiratory down-regulation to a religious ingroup member may be apparent. These physiological signals may provide interoceptive information about a peer’s trustworthiness.
ContributorsThibault, Stephanie A (Author) / Roberts, Nicole A. (Thesis advisor) / Burleson, Mary (Committee member) / Hall, Deborah (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Current data indicates that a growing number of individuals in the English-speaking world are identifying as “spiritual, but not religious” (SBNR). Using ethnographic data collected at two important sites of spiritual pilgrimage and tourism—Glastonbury, England and Sedona, Arizona—this project argues that seekers at these places produce spirituality as much as they consume it. Using the lens of economy, this project examines how seekers conceptualize the (super-) natural resources at these sites, the laborious practices they perform to transform these resources, and the valuation and exchange of the resultant products. In so doing, the project complicates prevailing notions, both among scholars and the public, that contemporary unaffiliated spirituality is predominantly an individualistic consumer process.
ContributorsVann, Jodie Ann (Author) / Fessenden, Tracy (Thesis advisor) / Cady, Linell (Committee member) / Kripal, Jeffrey (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Anti-atheist prejudice is cross-culturally prevalent and marked by intuitive distrust. However, recent research suggests that, when social perceivers know additional relevant information about others (i.e., their reproductive strategies), this information overrides religious information and nonreligious targets are trusted as much as religious targets. That is, perceivers seem to use religious information as a cue to a specific set of behavioral traits, but prioritize direct information about these traits when available. Here, I use this framework to explore the possibility that atheists are viewed positively in certain circumstances. First, atheists might be viewed positively for certain purposes because of their perceived reproductive strategies, even while being trusted less. Second, atheists who are family-oriented do not sacrifice trust, but may still be viewed positively for other traits (i.e., open-mindedness, scientific thinking). Third, given the constraints religion often imposes on behavior, atheists might be trusted more in situations where these constraints interfere with religious people’s inclination to cooperate. I tested these hypotheses using fictitious social media profiles to examine social perception. The study had a 3 (Target Religion: Religious, Nonreligious, or Atheist) × 3 (Target Reproductive Strategy: No Information, Committed, Uncommitted) experimental design (N = 550). Contrary to my predictions, participants did not rate atheists and nonreligious targets as “fast” compared to religious targets. Consistent with predictions, however, atheists and nonreligious individuals were rated significantly higher on perceived open-mindedness and scientific thinking. Finally, atheist and nonreligious targets were trusted more in two of the three trust domains: trust with scientific findings that contradict their worldview and trust with a secret about a friend’s abortion. Further analyses compared patterns of responding for religious and nonreligious individuals, finding evidence for ingroup bias in most perceptions, but not all. Results suggest that perceptions of atheists are complex, but that atheists may, at least sometimes, be viewed favorably. Finally, these results point to the importance of reproductive strategy as a dimension of social perception, as this variable had a clear effect, independent of target religion, on the hypothesized perceptions.
ContributorsMoon, Jordan W (Author) / Cohen, Adam B. (Thesis advisor) / Neuberg, Steven L. (Committee member) / Kenrick, Douglas T. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
This study analyzes competing forms of Protestant Christianity within the Bible Belt of the Upper South (Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina). On one hand, a conservative “culture war” version of Christianity has dominated the South, and deeply influenced national politics, for almost fifty years. This form of Christianity is predicated on white supremacy and heteropatriarchy and regulates religious, as well as sexual, gender, and racial norms. On the other hand, an emerging movement of those once socialized in the culture war version of Protestantism is now reconfiguring the regional traditions. Through ethnographic fieldwork, qualitative interviews, and historical analysis, this study explores the ways these post-culture war Christians are navigating and negotiating relations with family, church, and politics and society more broadly. This work argues that Protestantism in the Upper South is being re-landscaped from the inside by individuals staying within the tradition who seek to reorient regional, national and religious identities. This study goes beyond generalizations about changes in American religion to shed light on the specific motivations, conflicts and dynamics inherent in shifts in lived religion in this particular region. In so doing it also contributes to deeper understanding of processes of religious change more generally.
ContributorsShoemaker, Terry (Author) / Cady, Linell (Thesis advisor) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Bennett, Gaymon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Data from 749 Mexican-origin families across a seven-year span was used to test a model of the processes that moderate and mediate the transmission of religious values from parent to child. There were four separate reports of parenting practices (mother-report, father-report, adolescent’s report on mother, and adolescents report on father) and models were tested separately based on each report. Results suggest the mother’s role was more influential than fathers in transmitting religious values to their child, across parent and adolescent-report. In addition, results revealed different, and opposing effects for mother’s self-report of parenting practices and adolescents report on mother’s parenting behavior. Adolescents’ perceptions of maternal acceptance and consistency increased the likelihood of adolescents maintaining their religious values across adolescence, whereas mothers’ self-reported parenting practices negatively predicted late adolescents’ religious values. Lastly, results of this study lend support for the differential role of mothers in fathers in the development of adolescents’ social competence, specifically in the context of their religious values and use of positive parenting practices. The findings highlight the unique contributions of each reports’ perceptions in studying the transmission of religious values in families, as well, as the distinct role of mothers and fathers in the development of adolescents’ social competence.
ContributorsPerez, Vanesa Marie (Author) / Gonzales, Nancy A. (Thesis advisor) / Lemery-Chalfant, Kathryn (Committee member) / Grimm, Kevin J. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
Religions, following Max Müller, have often been seen by scholars in religious studies as uniform collections of beliefs and practices encoded in stable “sacred books” that direct the conduct of religious actors. These texts were the chief focus of academic students of religion through much of the 20th century, and this approach remains strong in the 21st. However, a growing chorus of dissidents has begun to focus on the lived experience of practitioners and the material objects that structure that experience, and some textual scholars have begun extending this materialist framework to the study of texts. This dissertation is a contribution in that vein from the field of Daoist studies. Now split between two separate texts, the Most High Scripture of the Rectifying Methods of the Three Heavens began as a 4th-century collection of apocalyptic predictions and apotropaic devices designed to deliver a select group of Chinese literati to the heavens of Highest Clarity. Later editors during the early medieval period (ca. 220-589 CE) took one of two paths: for their own reasons, they altered the Rectifying Methods to emphasize either the world’s end or its continuation. Detailed study of these alterations and their contexts shows how individuals and groups used and modified the Rectifying Methods in in ways that challenge the conventional relationship between religious text and religious actor.
ContributorsSwanger, Timothy Charles (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen R (Thesis advisor) / Campany, Robert (Committee member) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Oh, Young (Committee member) / West, Stephen (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
This dissertation examines lexical and phonetic variations between Daigi, Hakka, and Modern Standard Chinese elements as used in two Daoist temples of southern Taiwan, the Daode Yuan (DDY) and Yimin Miao (YMM) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, which form linguistic repertoires from which religious communities construct language variants called religiolects. Specific variations in the use of these repertoires appear to be linked to specific religious thought processes. Among my results, one finds that phonetic features of Daigi and Hakka appear linked to the use of language in religious contexts at the DDY and YMM, especially such that alterations in pronunciation, which would otherwise be inappropriate, are linked to speakers of the religiolects processing and producing religious thought in ways they otherwise would not. For example, what would normally be pronounced [tʰe laɪ] internal to one's body would be archaicized as [tʰe lue], from frequent contact with [lue tan] inner alchemy; this leads to reinforced conception of the inner body as sacred space. One also finds that semantic features of lexical items received sacralized contours in overt and non-overt ways, such that lexical items that would otherwise be irreligious become religious in nature; e.g., instances of the appearance of 道, especially in binomial items, would be resolved or parsed by reference to the sacred meaning of the word (such as the [to] in [tsui to tsui], which normally means having its source in, coming to be associated with 道 as path from sacred font).
ContributorsJackson, Paul Allen (Author) / Bokenkamp, Stephen (Thesis advisor) / Oh, Youngkyun (Committee member) / Chen, Huaiyu (Committee member) / Swanson, Todd (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The concept of Velayat-e Faqih as a type of Shi’ite Islamic government gained popularity three decades ago, after the Islamic revolution in Iran. The new constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was based on Velayat-e Fagih, proposed by the Imam Khomeini many consider him as the leader of the Islamic Revolution and the founder of the Iranian Islamic Republic. What is Velayat-e Faqih? Who can be the Vali Faqih? Why wasn't this idea proposed before Islamic Revolution in 1979? Did all the Shi’ite religious scholars endorse this idea or the Vali Faqih himself? All of these questions ultimately lead us to ask whether this concept has been drawn from Shi’ite Islamic discourses or it may perhaps be considered a novelty: a secularization of religion. These questions are increasingly discussed in academia and in the large public arena. Moreover, this discourse has divided Shi’ite Muslims into three groups: supporters of the Velayat-e Faqih, its opponents, and the silent group. It is important to analyze the position of all those groups including the silent group who did not publicly endorse or reject the theory. The theory of Velayat-e Faqih has emerged from the Imamate doctrine, which constitutes a cornerstone of Shi'ite sect of Islam. It is necessary to understand this political doctrine in relation to the context within which this concept of leadership had emerged. In order to overcome the ambiguities surrounding the relationship between Velayat-e Faqih and the position of Islamic jurist as a source of guidance and imitation (Marje Taqleed), it is necessary to discuss the various dimension of guardianship in the absence of the infallible Imam. Furthermore, the focus of this research is to review whether the concept of Velayat-e Faqih was innovated after the Islamic Revolution of Iran or existed within the Shi’ite tradition.
ContributorsRezai, Ali Siyar (Author) / Gallab, Abdullahi (Thesis advisor) / Talebi, Shahla (Committee member) / Gereboff, Joel (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016