Temples are sites through which flow crowds of sensations, people, gods, ideas, capital, food, and ritual artifacts – a great many kinds of movements and transformations – thus papers exploring mobility in relation to Chinese temples are included in this issue. Papers on religion and migration, on the circulation or the training of ritual specialists, opera troupes, craftsmen and ritual artifacts within transnational networks are included. Topics covered include spirit mediums and their roles in Chinese temples, processions and major and minor rituals, and typologies of temples. Some papers use social network analysis or GIS approaches to analyze Chinese temples in Southeast Asia. Other papers explore major religious events of Southeast Asia, such as the Nine Emperor God Festival, Chinese New Year rites and processions, or ritual activities during the Ghost Month, either through individual case studies or through comparative or network analyses. Papers cover locally invented cults and rites, hybrid ritual forms, and the interactions between Chinese temple rites and communities and other religious or ethnic groups. Some papers discuss the spread of particular Buddhist lineages, or sectarian religious movements, through the region. Others provide comparative studies of ritual change and its causes and effects, or of the different kinds of trust networks and state-society relations developed within and between Chinese temples in different parts of Southeast Asia. Taken together, this collection of papers marks a milestone in the study of the religious and ritual aspects of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia.
