Viva Prep Flashcards
(21 cards)
Tell us about your doctoral research
My research is broadly concerned with a development in the Buddhist tradition known as engaged Buddhism, which refers to the application of Buddhist principles and practices to situations of social and environmental suffering. Built on 12 months of multi-sited fieldwork in Bristol, Cambridge, and London, I specifically take the case of Extinction Rebellion Buddhists, a UK-based environmentally engaged Buddhist group and subgroup of the broader environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, to highlight the increasing use of meditation as a form of direct-action activism. XR Buddhists meditate publicly and collectively in areas all around Britain to underscore the urgency of the ecological crisis and protest the lack of government action regarding climate change. Actions have been taken in parks, along roads, in the middle of streets, inside shopping malls and banks, even naked outside of Kings College in Cambridge. Sometimes this leads to participants, still in their meditative state, being forcibly moved and arrested by law enforcement.
My research contests typical images of Buddhism as an apolitical and other-worldly religion by showing its highly diverse nature and the ways it has been marked, throughout its history, by change, adaptation, and transformation. In doing so, it contributes to existing literature in the anthropology of Buddhism by highlighting the ever-diversifying relationship between Buddhism and social change. However, I believe that my research’s main contributions lie in the anthropology of ethics. In following the XRB community as they reimagine, negotiate, and enact Buddhist principles and meditation in the context of the climate crisis, ethnographically, my research describes and analyzes the ways in which meditation is experienced and made meaningful for XR Buddhists themselves, as well as how the ethical insights gained in the practice are envisioned by group members as a form of resistance against the suffering being caused to the planet. In doing so, it addresses the theoretical question of how social change can be enacted through meditation. And this question is positioned at the subjective, the embodied, and the material ways that change is experienced, as well as the variety of individual, micro, and macro contexts within which change takes place.
I conclude that meditation, for XR Buddhists, serves as form of prefigurative politics, which refers to the ways in which activists embody and enact, within their activism, the socialities and practices they foster for broader society. The practice provides practitioners with an opportunity to embody an alternate mode of being; one defined by their Buddhist values. Prefiguration is ethical, political and technical, and necessitates transforming individual values, material relationships, as well as broader societal structures. Beginning first with the ethical domain, in enacting specific embodied techniques, I argue that XR Buddhists reformulate Buddhist principles and practice in the context of the climate crisis, fostering a particular sense of connectedness with the Earth. In doing so, they cultivate an embodied sense of responsibility for the planet that was often considered profoundly transformative and central to triggering an individual’s participation in eco-activism. The group’s sense of obligation subsequently acted as a duty of care for all living beings. Considering Buddhism’s emphasis on universal compassion and meditation’s consistent use as a practice of care, I explore how practitioners aim to affectively engage with the world and its suffering by extending care from oneself to others, both human and nonhuman. Such an ethical foregrounding works to avoid eco-anxiety and activist burnout for XR Buddhists themselves, resist causing harm to others and envision the wellbeing of the Earth and all living beings as intimately connected. In doing so, the group cultivates new caring imaginaries, in which care is stretched across space.
When placed in the context of a political demonstration, this caring imaginary subsequently acts as a challenge to uncaring and unsustainable capitalist frameworks. I argue that when practiced collectively and publicly, meditation is used as a form of world-making, one that espouses Buddhist values of compassion, nonviolence, and interconnection to build a utopian vision of the world, one centered around an understanding of responsibility and relationships, thereby contesting neoliberal understandings of care based on hyper-individualization and productivity. Such an imaginary is agreed upon and made legible in XRB’s virtual community engagements, where group members coordinate, debate, and enact their strategies and attitudes amongst themselves. XRB therefore acts as a space for negotiating how to forge care in an uncaring world amidst rampant ecological decline
The potential of self-cultivating technologies to act as a form of resistance has been consistently overlooked. My research departs from previous scholarly characterizations of meditation as individualistic and ‘selfish’, in addition to typical interpretations of prefigurative politics that tend to focus on the continuum of ‘means and ends’, by highlighting the practice’s ability to act as a new form of politics. Utopian visions are shown to be enacted through modes of being as opposed to processes of doing, with the meditating body explored as a means of reclaiming and re-enchanting the world through the cultivation of new caring imaginaries and the generation of collective, shared intentions. Such a framing highlights the potential of meditation as a form of political prefiguration and posits the intersections between utopia and care as a tool to help produce a ‘radically compassionate’ or ‘optimistic’ anthropology in a time when disastrous environmental futures proliferate.
How did you come to research the topic in this manner?
It was kind of a gradual process. As I discussed in my methodology, I had a previous relationship to both Buddhism and activism. While my interest in activism has persisted throughout my life, after taking David’s Anthropology of Buddhism course during my MPhil degree, my interest in Buddhism was reignited. So, this, coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic, is what brought me to XR Buddhists because they combined my two interests and were based in the UK.
What are the main achievements of your research?
I think my research has two main achievements. The first is that it introduces a new phenomenon in contemporary Buddhism, one that had yet to be thoroughly explored. The second is that it expands our understanding of the uses of self-cultivating technologies: what they can achieve and how they achieve this. With this in mind my research contributes to knowledge in both the anthropology of Buddhism and the anthropology of ethics.
What has your thesis contributed to our knowledge in this field? ENGAGED BUDDHISM
While engaged Buddhism has been researched by a multitude of academics and Buddhist scholars, XR Buddhists reflect a recent progression within the movement, one which, at the time of my research, has yet to be thoroughly explored: the involvement of an engaged Buddhist group with a direct-action social movement. Such developments exemplify the ever-diversifying relationship between Buddhism and social change. My work contributes to this emerging area by highlighting the increasing collaborative endeavor taking place between Western Buddhists and secular, eco-activist discourse, which works to reconfigure the landscape of engaged Buddhism.
What has your thesis contributed to our knowledge in this field? ANTHROPOLOGY OF ETHICS
My research has also aimed to contribute to knowledge in the anthropology of ethics, especially in regards to self-cultivation, as it addresses fundamental questions about how people inhabit and foster particular moral selves. In doing so, it presents new findings regarding how ethical frameworks not only contribute to broader meta-ethical discourses, but how they are enacted in lived experience and, in turn, how they might lead to progressive social change. These findings have a broader impact beyond anthropology. In studies of self-cultivation, there hasn’t been much focus on these technologies and their capacity as a political tool. In the context of meditation specifically, there tends to be a focus on the practice in a religious setting or in terms of contemporary mindfulness trends. Very little attention has been paid to the ways in which meditation can be used to deal with broader social issues. In fact, a great deal of literature has characterized the practice as individualistic and selfish. My research contests these assumptions by showing how the ethical insights gained in the practice were envisioned by XR Buddhists as a form of resistance to the suffering being caused to the planet.
What are the main theoretical strands in your research? What are the crucial ideas and who are the main contributors?
The main question which guides my research is: How do XR Buddhists use Buddhist principles and meditation to combat the challenges posed by the Anthropocene? From here, is a more theoretical focus on how social change can be enacted through meditation, which led me to address the practice as a form of prefigurative politics. Group members consistently spoke of meditation as an opportunity to embody an alternate mode of being and show that another world is possible. The ethical insights gained in the practice were thought to influence not only an individual’s personal transformation in regards to climate action, but challenge broader social trajectories. I was therefore interested in the ways that change is experienced, not only on a structural level, but a collective and individual one. I therefore divided my thesis into theoretical strands on the ethical, practical, and intersubjective dimensions of meditation as a form of prefiguration.
In terms of the ethical dimension, like other anthropological work on self-cultivation in the anthropology of ethics, as well as in studies of meditation more specifically, such as those done by Cook, Carvalho, Cassaniti and Wheater, my work is informed by Foucault’s later work on technologies of the self, or the activities individuals engage in to mold themselves into particular moral subjects. These practices can range from fasting and confession to diary-keeping and exercise. Foucault’s theory is comprised of the relationship between power, subjectivity, and ethical self-formation, and how these things work together. He asserts that self-cultivation practices are not wholly self-directed, just as they are not wholly socially determined. Therefore, while technologies of the self have the potential to reproduce the social order, they can also work against it. I use Foucault’s theory to analyze the ways in which meditators come to embody particular Buddhist tenets, and also how religious practices operate within the broader context of religious norms.
Another crucial aspect of the ethical dimension of prefiguration, for XR Buddhists, is tied to care. Meditation has historically been used, not only as a practice of self-cultivation, but of care and has routinely been explored in scholarship by academics like Cook, Wheater, Pagis, and Myers et al. through its influence on the mental wellbeing of practitioners. However, I am also interested in a particular area of feminist and anthropological scholarship that focuses on the ethical and political dimensions of care that might extend beyond the internal self. Such an area is dominated by academics like Joan Tronto and Jarret Zigon who have addressed care as a relational practice, leading to an emerging theoretical strand, coming from people like Donna Haraway, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, and Anna Tsing, that envision care’s capacity beyond the human and its existence in multispecies contexts. This relational ethic of care, as Zigon terms it, is becoming an increasingly common form of utopian thinking, one that is being used to address a variety of world problems. Prefiguration is often tied to utopianism by people like Yates and Cooper, who aim to uncover how people imagine alternative social worlds and futures. Within this, there is an even more specific focus on ecological prefiguration and its relationship to utopianism. Pepper, Lockyer, Veteto, as well as Centemeri and Asara have all examined the prefiguration of ecotopian ideals, or the embodiment of forms of coexistence between human beings and other living beings. Following them, I explore how, through meditation, XRB foster a particular ecotopian imaginary that is intimately bound up with Buddhist conceptualisations of care, in which care is ‘stretched across space’.
With this imaginary now formed, of subsequent concern is the practical implementation of the group’s desired future society. Following Dinerstein, I aim to show how public, collective meditation is used by XR Buddhists to enact a concrete utopia, an active and lived form of utopian thinking. I use this in conjunction with the work of Suzanne Klein-Schaarsberg, arguing that XRB’s concrete utopia is rooted in the subjective, embodied, and affective dimensions of the groups meditative practice. Utopian visions are therefore enacted, not through processes of doing, but through forms of being.
The final theoretical strand of my research is concerned with prefigurative organizing. Prefiguration is thought to require intentionality and labor. Deliberative processes therefore act as a form of prefiguration themselves. Drawing mainly on the work of Dlugatch, but also Reinecke, Sliwinski, and Wright, I aimed to explore the ways that XR Buddhists coordinated, debated, and enact their strategies and moral attitudes amongst themselves. Prefigurative organizing was analyzed in conjunction with work in digital anthropology, primarily Nardi’s concept of virtuality, arguing that the virtual domain operated as the primary space where XR Buddhist’s vision of a more caring world was negotiated.
Summarize your theoretical framework
- So, to summarize, meditation as a technology of the self works to facilitate the subjective transformation necessary to embody the values of XRB’s desired future society. This value through which prefiguration is negotiated, for XR Buddhists, is care. Through meditation, practitioners foster a particular caring imaginary that rethinks humanity’s relationship to both nature and other humans by striving for a mode of living based on the need to care for all life on Earth. This ecotopian vision is enacted outwardly in the group’s protest demonstrations. Public, collective meditation enacts a concrete utopia, not through processes of doing, but through the presentation of an alternate mode of being in the world. However, the group’s utopian vision is also enacted and negotiated within the XRB community itself. Through prefigurative organizing, which is facilitated through multiple virtual means, XR Buddhists also enact their image of a more caring world amongst themselves. Therefore, through the ethical, practical, and intersubjective dimensions of prefigurative politics, XRB acts as a space for negotiating how to forge care in an uncaring world amidst rampant ecological decline.
What are the main issues (matters of debate or dispute) in these areas?
ANTH OF ETHICS: Transcendental versus everyday ethics / Call for a more complex understanding of ethics / Western individualism
TOTS: Foucault’s focus on discourse
CARE: What is care? What does it involve? What is it capable of achieving?
PREFIGURATION: What is the efficacy of prefigurative politics? What do they involve?
Where is your thesis ‘placed’ in terms of the existing theory and debate? ANTH OF ETHICS
In terms of the debate regarding transcendental and every ethics, following Zigon, I envision transcendence as an essential component of and intimately woven with the ordinary for XR Buddhists. The group’s understanding of care combines elements of Buddhist soteriology with materialist concerns for social and ecological justice. Their ethics are therefore premised on a transcendent mode in which people reflect on otherworldly values as well as an everyday mode characterized by the contemporary sociopolitical significance of the climate crisis. Through this intermingling of the transcendental and the everyday, I also aim to highlight the complex and sometimes even conflictual nature of moral lives. With XRB’s Buddhist and activist identities oftentimes in direct contention with one another, I aimed to show how meditation served as an opportunity for practitioners to settle for a kind of value compromise which reframed their connections to religion and activism by uniting them through care.
In terms of self-cultivation, my research continues to follow the existing literature on meditation as a technology of the self while also recognizing the theories faults in this context. Similar to Michal Pagis, I believe that in order to fully understand meditation as a self-cultivating process, one needs to address the significance of embodied experience in processes of transformation. Meditation requires particular body postures, modes of awareness, and associations with materials and spaces to perform subjectivities. It is only through these embodied experiences that XR Buddhists realize the “true” interdependent nature of the climate crisis. Moreover, it is only through an understanding of these embodied experiences that the group’s distinct practice of meditation is fully understood. I therefore blend Foucault with phenomenology, specifically Merleau-Ponty’s theory of intercorporeality, to address the significance of embodiment in technologies of the self.
Where is your thesis ‘placed’ in terms of the existing theory and debate? PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS
My research has departed from the McMindfulness critique of contemporary meditation practice, as well as critiques of prefigurative politics, by highlighting the significance of modes of being as opposed to processes of doing in prefigurative changemaking. The focus on ‘being’ in this case does not exclude ‘doing’ altogether; rather, it suggests that the prefigurative process of meditation involves a transformation of the self, whereby my interlocutors’ inner affective states actively prefigure other ways of relating and existing in the world. This reshaping of subjectivity becomes a form of prefigurative ‘doing’ through the presentation of an alternate mode of being that, when enacted collectively and publicly, can also lead to a restructuring of social relations.
How would the major researchers react to your ideas?
Anthropology of ethics: As mentioned in the conclusion of my thesis, a lot of research in the anthropology of ethics has been meta-ethical. I think people would be interested in my research because it draws on the meta-ethical discourse on relational ethics while also conveying how this ethical framework is enacted in lived experience.
Prefigurative Politics: While, as mentioned, prefigurative politics are often seen as a practice, scholarship on the topic has also long concerned itself with analyzing political action that would not ordinarily be understood as transformative. It doesn’t propose that modes of being are better than processes of doing in prefigurative changemaking. I therefore believe that my findings would be seen by many as enriching the debate on this topic.
Who do you think will be most interested in this work?
I think my research appeals to a wide audience. It is interesting to scholars of Buddhism and meditation, as it introduces a further development in the religion and its practice’s use in the context of social engagement. At the same time, my work obviously appeals to those focused on prefigurative politics, as it expands our understanding of what prefiguration is and what it involves. My research also has something to offer anyone who is interested in the Anthropocene, as it reveals how a particular group of people are responding to the climate crisis. If I had to choose, however, I would say those interested in the anthropology of ethics, particularly virtue ethics, would also be interested in what I have to say. My work reveals how activists live out the morals of their desired future society, but also how they struggle to reconcile conflicting values in everyday life.
What published research is closest to yours? How is your work different?
In terms of prefigurative politics, my research is similar to Suzanne Klein-Schaarsberg. She also looks at meditation as a form of political prefiguration and even spent some of her time in the field in the UK. I am obviously very inspired by what she has to say, and in following her I also wish to highlight the significance of affective, embodied, and spiritual experiences in social change. However, a crucial aspect of meditation as a form of changemaking, for XR Buddhists, is in its ability to extend beyond the practitioner and penetrate the subjectivity of broader society. I therefore build on Klein Schaarsberg’s analysis by also highlighting the intersubjective dimensions of self-transformation as a political project.
In terms of Buddhism and meditation, my research also takes a lot from you, Dr. Cook. Our current work is both interested in contemporary uses of meditation practice in the UK. However, yours is more interested in the mindfulness movement in Britain, while my interest is in the relationship between meditation and direct-action. In Chapter 4 of my thesis, I draw on your text Meditation in Modern Buddhism quite extensively. Like you, I also interrogate meditation as a technology of the self and am interested in the experiential dimensions of the practice which lead to one making oneself Buddhist, as you put it. However, building on your work, my research also explores how meditation influences an XR Buddhists’ participation in political activism. So, I aim to convey how meditation and its associations with ethical cultivation have been translated in the context of the climate crisis.
Why did you choose the particular research methodology that you used?
With XR Buddhists’ practices involving silent meditation, an experiential, more than an observational mode of inquiry, was required. This led me to engage in a heavily experiential form of participant observation, in which I learned to be a meditator and, from this, an XR Buddhist. I participated in every realm of the group’s activism and community life. I meditated in the middle of busy roads. I also participated in media and outreach. Outside of protest actions, I engaged in group meetings, community gatherings, and social media forums. And doing so proved critical in capturing both the verbal and non-verbal aspects of field knowledge and the meanings behind them. By engaging in participant experience, my experiences of meditation and activism became interlocked with those of my interlocutors, enabling meaningful conversations about the diverse embodied sensations associated with meditation: the struggles of the wandering mind, the difficulties making time for daily at home meditation practice, and most significantly the transformative affects that meditation had amongst the group and their subjectivities.
What were the crucial research decisions that you made?
I think the most crucial research decision I made was my switch from single-site to multi-sited fieldwork. I had already spent 9 months with XR Buddhists during my MPhil degree. However, due to COVID this was largely done online. My only ever instance of in-person participant observation was for the first day of the September 2020 Rebellion. So, when it came time to undertake my doctoral research, I decided to center my research on the XR Buddhist group in Bristol, mainly because I had been suggested it by one interlocutor Theo, but also because of the thriving activist culture that the city possesses. With this in mind, I wanted to look at notions of embodiment as well as emplacement, how the city of Bristol plays a central role and becomes interwoven into an activist context. However, within a few weeks I realized this decision did not do justice to the mobility of the group and their highly contextualized form of protest and care. With this information in mind, I concluded that it would be far more worthwhile for my research to transform into a multi-sited study. This was a difficult decision to make, however it was so worthwhile. Discovering how XR Buddhists implemented their meditative practices in specific contexts, I had to allow my research to adapt and accommodate these findings. Focusing solely on Bristol and restricting my research in the city would simply not have done justice to the multifaceted workings of XRB’s actions and the group’s nomadic nature.
If you were doing this research again, would you consider using any other research
methodology?
I would focus on two sites instead of three. My research needed to be multi-sited because XR Buddhists themselves are multi-sited. However, while I got valuable data from my time spent in Bristol that I would hate to lose now that I have it, the group was much smaller and less active than the group in Cambridge. I really wanted to look at two local groups to confirm that what was happening in Bristol was also happening elsewhere, but I also wanted to realize that the additional site added logistical challenges and stretched my time and resources thin.
What do you see as the next steps in this research?
I have just begun my journey to disseminating my findings. I have a forthcoming article that will published in the next few weeks. I am currently working with Professor Joel Robbins at Cambridge on my ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship application. I really want that fellowship and think it would be invaluable to my career as an early career researcher. During the 12-month fellowship, I would continue to develop my already-established publication record, disseminate my research findings to a range of different audiences (I would like to attend academic conferences, engaged Buddhist gatherings, and climate conferences like COP 30), carry out a small amount of further research, and continue my training in research and related skills like proposal and grant writing. By the end of that fellowship, I would like to be sending off my thesis to potential book publishers.
What was the most interesting finding in your results?
The diverse ways that meditation was used by XR Buddhists: It was not only used as a practice of ethical cultivation, it was also a symbolic act and form of direct-action activism, as well as a micropolitical technique and an intersubjective encounter. I think my research therefore expands our collective understanding of the practice and self-cultivating technologies and what they can achieve.
The intertwinement of a Buddhist community and a direct-action social movement: How the group incorporated Buddhist philosophy with XR’s emphasis on emergency.
Were you surprised by any of your results? (if so, why, and what was surprising?)
I remember being surprised that the vast majority of XR Buddhists were activists long before they were ever Buddhist. I think a lot of literature on the relationship between Buddhism and activism and Buddhism and the environment has tried to decipher this conscious activist or environmental ethic in the religion. So, before starting fieldwork I believed that interlocutors would be crediting their participation in eco-activism to their religious identity. However, I was surprised that most interlocutors’ motivation for participation in direct-action activism, while undoubtedly influenced by their Buddhist identity, was not necessarily instigated by it
What advice would you give a new student entering this area?
My advice would be to listen to what your interlocutors are telling you and don’t be scared if what you are being told is not lining up with what the literature is saying, which I definitely was at first. This goes for scholarship on both engaged Buddhism and prefigurative politics, but engaged Buddhism especially. Ethnographic studies of this development I believe are sorely needed, as much of the existing research has taken very static approaches and has rarely interrogated how the development is lived and experienced by practitioners themselves.
Situate your research within Buddhism.
Studies of engaged Buddhism, mine included, have largely focused on how the relationship between Buddhism and social engagement has been cultivated in the wake of Buddhist modernism. Scholars such as Morgan, Lopez, and McMahan have examined the historical intersections between Buddhist philosophy and Western theory and influence, arguing that Buddhism emerged in conjunction and response to colonialism, and this reforming spirit then acted as the catalyst for various modernist movements. Building on these conclusions, scholars such as Ken Jones and Christopher Titmuss have looked specifically at the reformulation of Buddhist philosophy encouraged by Buddhist modernism, and how principles like compassion, nonviolence, and interconnection can be used to combat a variety of world problems. Within this, there is an even more specific focus on the relationship between Buddhism and the environment by those such as Darlington, Schmithausen, Harris, Elverskog, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, and David Loy, among others. So, it is within this ongoing conversation on Buddhist modernism, and its relationship to traditional Buddhism, that I situate my own research group.
Throughout history, scholars have attempted to develop an image of what they consider “original,” “primitive,” or “pure” Buddhism. As a result, the various moves towards a “this-worldly” Buddhism, curated by modernist discourse, have resulted in widespread backlash. In terms of engaged Buddhism, even the existence of the movement is called into question, as well as how engaged and engaged Buddhist can be. Whether critics are arguing that all Buddhism is inherently engaged or that engaged Buddhism is simply a Western farce, the development has been consistently scrutinized, compartmentalized, or altogether dismissed.
My research has endeavored to move away from determining what constitutes “real” Buddhism or Western appropriations by showing the religion’s highly diverse and reformative nature. I approached the recent proliferation of direct-action and engaged Buddhism in the UK through the recognition of the ongoing tension between attempts to preserve traditional ideals and modes of practice and the need to adapt to changing social and cultural conditions. While rooted in ancient principles and spurred on by developments initiated by Buddhist modernism, I further characterized XR Buddhists’ practices as a collaborative endeavor between Western Buddhists and secular, eco-activist discourse. Such attempts might upset Buddhist scholars still fixated on authenticity. I mentioned in my thesis a moment I had with someone in Buddhist studies at a conference who was adamant that what XR Buddhists were doing wasn’t actually meditation or engaged Buddhism. However, I believe academics who are interested in Buddhism not as a scriptural tradition but as a lived religion such as Gleig, Darlington, Schmithausen, Gellner, and Gombrich would appreciate my ideas, as I attempt to understand the relationship between Buddhism and social change in terms of its lived experience in specific contexts.
