Power and Agency in the Lives of Contemporary Tibetan Nuns

An Intersectional Study

Mitra Harkonen (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

252 Seiten

2023
Equinox Publishing Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-80050-300-7 (ISBN)

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This book examines the lived experiences of oppression and opportunities encountered by contemporary Tibetan Buddhist nuns living in the People’s Republic of China and the Tibetan exile community in India. It investigates how the intersections of the nuns’ female gender, their Buddhist religion and their Tibetan nationality on the one hand produce subordination and an unequal distribution of power but, on the other, provide the nuns with opportunities and agency. Depending on the intersection of her status positions, the Tibetan nun can be either disadvantaged or privileged, and sometimes both at the same time.

Power structures and relations that disadvantage nuns as women, as religious practitioners, and as Tibetans, are constructed and maintained in different domains of power. In the structural domain, traditional but still dominant institutions – such as the distribution of work, marriage, educational practices and religious institutions – disadvantage Tibetan nuns. In the disciplinary domain of power, the nuns are monitored by traditional culture and the Chinese authorities. The unequal distribution of power in these domains is justified by hegemonic ideas based on religious and cultural beliefs, ideas of religion and modernity, and religion and gender. These domains of power find their expression in the everyday life in the interpersonal sphere.

Analysis also reveals that many nuns were highly active in choosing and determining their life course. Monastic life offers Tibetan women freedom from the suffering faced by laywomen. The juncture of their gender, religion and nationality also provides them with agency in their nationalism, which is both visible and more subtle. Monastic life also offers them religious agency as compassionate bodhisattvas, who aim to not only benefit other living beings but also themselves.

Mitra Harkonen is University Lecturer of Urban Theology at the University of Helsinki.

Section I: Introduction
Tibetan Women - “Extraordinarily Liberated” or “Shockingly Oppressed?”
Intersectionality: A Theory and a Method
Doing Research in the Contested Tibetan Field

Section II: From Laity to Monastic Life
The Idea of Nunhood Matures
Donning the Robes
Finding a Place to Stay
Life as a Nun

Section III: Tibetan Nuns in Domains of Power
Macro-level Connections of Gender, Religion and Nationality
Oppressive Social Institutions of Tibet-China
Internalized and Forced Discipline
Hegemonic Ideologies and Doctrines
Domination in Everyday Practices

Section IV: Opportunities in Monastic Life
Agencies and Opportunities
Freedom in Monasticism
Agency as Resistance
Agency as Cultural Maintenance
Compassionate Agency
Increasing Opportunities

Section V: Conclusion
Between Oppression and Opportunities

Erscheinungsdatum	16.02.2023
Reihe/Serie	The Study of Religion in a Global Context
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	155 x 234 mm
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Buddhismus
ISBN-10	1-80050-300-8 / 1800503008
ISBN-13	978-1-80050-300-7 / 9781800503007
Zustand	Neuware