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Contact the
organizers: Asian Studies Conference (ASCJ) c/o Institute of
Asian Cultural Studies, International Christian University 3-10-2
Osawa, Mitaka-shi, Tokyo 181
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Session 24
The Politics of Religion in Contemporary China
Organizer/Chair: Yoshiko Ashiwa, Hitotsubashi University
This panel examines dynamism of religion in contemporary China
since the late 1970s. The framework is that this dynamism is
proceeding through the interaction of various actors within the
context of state policies and bureaucratic administration of
religion. State religious policy contains definitions, principles,
and stipulations that problematize such issues as membership,
rituals, and teaching in religious communities and also the form
of state interventions in religious communities. But the policy
is vague enough and the state management apparatus loose enough
to permit multiple interpretations and competing possibilities.
The revival of religion in locales, therefore, involves the interaction
of such various actors as different levels of the state and religious
associations, religious sites and clergy, and various groups
of adherents, overseas Chinese, and foreign religious groups,
as well as tourism, business, education and other societal sectors.
Most studies of religion in contemporary China focus on either
the identities, beliefs and values within religious communities
or the policies and bureaucracy of state apparatus of religious
management. This panel moves in a less charted direction by foregrounding
the interaction of state and society in the institutionalization
of religion. The first paper (Ashiwa) presents a theoretical
framework for considering the politics of religion and its revival
in China. The second paper (Murakami) examines how everyday practices
among Shanghai Protestants are constrained by the state policy
stipulation for Christianity to be "Chinese". The third
paper (Vala) examines the local interpretations and implementation
of national religious policy in regard to Christianity in the
northeast border region city of Harbin. The fourth paper (Wank)
examines the politics of institutionalizing Buddhism in the southeast
city of Xiamen, focusing on the role of the Chinese Buddhist
Association. All papers draw on extended fieldwork in China and
presenters are from the disciplines of anthropology, sociology,
and political science.
1) Yoshiko Ashiwa, Hitotsubashi University. "Positioning
Religion: A Theoretical Approach to Studying Religion in Contemporary
Societies"
This paper will consider the methodology of research, analysis
and theoretical framework for studying religion by focusing on
contemporary China. Examining studies of religion in China since
the Cultural Revolution, especially Buddhism, indicates that
religion should be considered as an equivalent arena of state-society
interaction alongside such established arenas of scholarship
as the market and civil society. I argue that bringing state
policies and bureaucratic administration into the analysis religion
furthers understanding of the institutionalization of emerging
religious fields in China which are constituted by the interaction
of various actors and agencies. I further argue that the study
of the institutionalizing of religion in China should be broadly
comparative with the situation of religion elsewhere in the modern
world.
2) Shiho Murakami, Hitotsubashi University. "Everyday
Practice of Religion: The "Chinicization" of Christianity
among Shanghai's Protestants"
So far the process of integrating Christianity into China has
been called by such terms as Chinicization (zhongguohua), and
"indigenization" (bendihua), etc... Discussion on this
matter among Chinese intellectuals sees it as a process of amalgamation
of western and Chinese cultures or as the reaction of the Chinese
Protestants to the Communist Party. However, not enough ethnographic
attention has been paid to how Protestants discuss their image
of Chinicization and how these images affect everyday practices.
This process is scattered in the practice and opinions of various
agencies, such as government and Communist Party officials, academics,
Christian leaders, and believers. Through fieldwork on the Chinese
Protestant Church in Shanghai, I examine the daily choices related
to Chinicization facing believers and churches in their everyday
practices.
3) Carsten T. Vala, University of California, Berkeley. "Believing
in the Northeast: Seeking Autonomy among Chinese Christians"
This paper will examine the grassroots search for autonomy among
Chinese Protestants and Greek Orthodox believers in Northeast
China. Starting from the unique setting and historical background
of the area, the paper addresses relationships among the official
and unofficial Protestant churches in the urban areas. The unique
location as a border area and the history of the Northeast as
a site of Russian and then Japanese presence shapes how religious
policy is conceived and carried out. In other areas of the country,
religious policy is grounded in the perspective of a historically
Chinese terrain interacting with the outside world; in the Northeast,
the very terrain itself has been contested, leading to policy
that is both more restrictive and actions by believers that are
highly guarded. In addition to geographical and historical factors,
the search for autonomy is also greatly affected by the surging
growth in Protestant believers.
4) David Wank, Sophia University. "The Politics of a
Local Religious Field: Buddhism in Xiamen"
This paper examines the institutionalization of Buddhism in Xiamen
since the late 1970s focusing on the its major temple, Nanputuo.
I trace the interaction of three actor, the state (different
levels of the Religious Affairs Bureau), the China Buddhist Association
(center and local levels), and clergy leadership in the restoration
of Nanputuo Temple. The local branch of the China Buddhist Association
has played a key role in the restoration and its position has
shifted over time from standing on the side of the temple to
allying itself with the local state. The paper traces this shift
to the interaction of local politics and changing religious policies,
and considers its implications for the drawing of the temple
towards national politics, activities, and institutions, on the
one hand, and movement of secondary temples and groups towards
the needs of the local sphere of Minnan speaking Buddhists.
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