Since 2003 Chiara Letizia has devoted her research to the Theravada Buddhist revival in Nepal. She has particularly chosen to study:
- the genesis of this movement, which is to be understood within the context of the Buddhist revival in India and Sri Lanka on the one side and the contemporary construction of Nepal as a Hindu kingdom on the other;
- the spreading of this Buddhism among the Newars which implies confrontation between traditional Newar Buddhism and this modern form of Buddhism;
- the very recent spreading of Theravada Buddhism among Hinduised populations, the Tharu and Magar, which she studies in the political context of exalting ethnic claims following restoration of democracy in 1990;
- the larger context of conversion to Buddhism in India, especially the conversion to Buddhism of untouchables as conducted by Ambadkar.
More recently she has an interest in Tharu and Magar activists whose task is to spread Buddhism within their group by using different strategies: the Buddhist identity has been politically proclaimed by ethnic associations in collective declarations, validated by new historiographies produced by group intellectuals, propagated via "teaching camps for the Buddhist doctrine" and finally achieved by establishing new rituals and appointing/training new specialists to celebrate them.
Key words: Theravada Buddhism, modernist Buddhism, conversion, Newar, Magar, Tharu
Fieldwork: Nepal
Publications:
2007 , " Réflexions sur la notion de conversion dans la diffusion du bouddhisme Theravada au Népal " in P. Beaucauge. D. Meintel eds. Anthropologica 49 n.1 Social and Political Dimensions of Religious Conversion, pp.51-66
2007, "La costruzione di un'identità buddhista in Nepal: l'esempio dei Tharu e dei Magar" Actes de la Conférence de la Société Canadienne d'Anthropologie (CASCA) Université Concordia, Montréal, 9-14 mai 2006, session: "Les limites de l'identité et la place du savoir. Constructions, déconstructions, collusions" in R. Malighetti ed. Etnografie delle identità , Roma Meltemi Editore, pp. 45-73.
2006, "Buddhismo come non-hinduismo? Su alcuni aspetti della diffusione del movimento theravada in Nepal" In M. Sernesi, F. Squarcini ed. Il buddhismo contemporaneo. Rappresentazioni, istituzioni, modernità Firenze, SEF, pp. 105-130.
2006 "Il perizoma e l'abito del monaco. Sulla simbologia del vestire nei riti d'iniziazione delle caste buddhiste newar in Nepal" In A. Saggioro ed. , Dimensioni Lontane. Quaderni di simbologia del vestire 1, Roma, Edizioni Nuova Cultura, pp. 75-100.
2006 "Retourner au bouddhisme moderne des origines: remarques sur la diffusion du bouddhisme Theravada chez les Tharu et les Magar du Népal", Annales de la Fondation Fyssen 20, pp. 69-78.
|
