Events

CHAIRPERSON

Prof Kenneth Dean, Asia Research Institute, and Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore

PROGRAM

ABSTRACT

This innovative and timely reassessment of political theology opens new lines of critical investigation into the intersections of religion and politics in contemporary Asia. Moving beyond a focus on the (post-)Christian West, this volume locates ‘development’ – conceptualised as a set of modern, transnational networks of ideas and practices of improvement that connect geographically disparate locations – as a vital focal point for critical investigations into Asian political theologies. Investigating the sacred dimensions of power through concepts of transcendence, sacrifice, victimhood, aspiration and salvation, the chapters in this collection demonstrate how European and Asian modernities are bound together through genealogical, institutional, and theo-political entanglements, as well as a long history of global interactions.

With contributions by leading anthropologists, historians, sociologists and political scientists, this volume brings new theoretical approaches into conversation with detailed empirical case studies grounded in modern Asia, offering a fresh and critical analysis of the ways in which political theology is imagined, materialised and contested both within and beyond nation-states.

This book developed out of an international workshop on “Political Theologies and Development in Asia”, organised by Asia Research Institute in February 2017. This event was part of a broader collaborative research project on ‘Religion and Development in Asia’ that was convened under ARI’s Religion and Globalisation Research Cluster from 2010-2015, and funded in part by the Luce Foundation.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Catherine Scheer joined the Ecole française d’Extrême-Orient in 2019 as a lecturer-researcher. She studied social anthropology at Paris X University and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. Her previous work focused on Cambodia’s “indigenous minorities”, specifically the Bunong, and their interactions with Protestant development actors. In her doctoral thesis on the dynamics of Christianisation in a highland commune, she examined the links between local worldviews and ritual practices and missionary teachings that have changed over time, affecting the Bunong’s claimed identity and moral logic. She thereby attempts to contribute to the anthropology of Christianity in continental Southeast Asia.

Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. She is currently Assistant Dean (Research Division in Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS)) and was the former Chair of the faculty-level FASS Migration Cluster. Her research addresses how citizenship is changing as a result of multi-directional migration flows in the Asia-Pacific. She is the author of Citizens in Motion: Emigration, Immigration and Re-migration Across China’s Borders (2019, Stanford University Press). Elaine has published widely on diaspora engagement and is now extending her research to two new domains: (1) transnational ageing and care in the Asia-Pacific, and (2) internal displacement at the China-Myanmar border, focusing on border im/mobilities, diaspora action and transnational aid.

Giuseppe Bolotta is Assistant Professor (Research) in Anthropology at the Department of Theology and Religion’s Centre for Catholic Studies (CCS) of Durham University (UK). He is a socio-cultural anthropologist and psychologist, specialised in the political anthropology of childhood, religion, and development. He has conducted extensive research on marginalised children, Catholic and Buddhist faith-based organisations, and the moral economy of humanitarian aid in West Africa and Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Thailand.

Philip Fountain is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at Victoria University of Wellington. A cultural anthropologist, he specialises in the study of religion. His research examines the ways in which religion intersects and is entangled with potent and contested modern political issues and formations. He has published extensively on the relationships between religion and international aid and development, including disaster relief and humanitarianism, community development, NGOs, human rights, peacebuilding, missionaries, advocacy, and fundraising. He has particular experience in Southeast Asia, though he is also interested in broader regional dynamics.

R. Michael Feener is Professor of Cross-regional Studies at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Kyoto University, and Associate Member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford. He was formerly Research Leader of the Religion and Globalisation Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, Associate Professor in the Department of History at the National University of Singapore, and the Sultan of Oman Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. He has published extensively in the fields of Islamic studies and Southeast Asian history, as well as on post-disaster reconstruction, religion and development. He is currently Head of the Maldives Heritage Survey.

Robin Bush has spent 20 years of her career in the international development sector with organisations like RTI International in Indonesia and as a country representative at The Asia Foundation, where she specialised in developing programmes with religious groups. She has written numerous articles on Islam and democracy in Indonesia, and is the author of the book Nahdlatul Ulama and the Struggle for Power within Islam and Politics in Indonesia. She currently teaches at the Singapore Management University as an adjunct faculty member.

Silvia Vignato is Associate Professor in Anthropology at the Università di Milano-Bicocca (UNIMIB). In addition to a monography about Indonesian Tamil migrants, other Sumatran ethnic minorities and their levels of subjective integration into the State (Au nom de l’hindouisme, L’Harmattan, 2001), she has published articles and edited collections about Malaysian factory workers and about post-conflict and post-disaster young Acehnese people (children, teenagers, young parents). She now carries out research on work, marginal environments, gender, evolving structures of families (with a focus on matrifocality) and independent children in Indonesia (Aceh) and Malaysia.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this webinar has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to aritm@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the webinar.