Anna Halafoff is Associate Professor of Sociology at Deakin University, Australia, and a Research Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Relations– Asia Pacific, at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on religious diversity, worldview education, interfaith relations, preventing violent extremism, Buddhism and gender, and Buddhism in Australia. Her publications include The Multifaith Movement: Global Risks and Cosmopolitan (2013) and Education about Religions and Worldviews: Promoting Intercultural and Interreligious Understanding in Secular Societies (2016, co-edited with Elisabeth Arweck and Donald Boisvert).
Emma Tomalin is Professor of Religion and Public Life at the University of Leeds. She has published widely on the topic of religion and gender, including Gender, Faith and Development (2011) and The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Gender and Society (with Caroline Starkey, 2022). She co-edits the Routledge Research in Religion and Development series and is co-chair of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Community (JLI) learning hub on Anti-Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.
Caroline Starkey is Associate Professor of Religion and Society at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on religion in contemporary Britain, particularly in relation to minority religions and gender. Her monograph Women in British Buddhism: Connection, Commitment, Community was published in 2020.
關鍵詞
Buddhism; gender; the Internet; digital counter-publics; Australia
摘要
Gender discrepancies persist in Buddhist societies and institutions, linked to cultural and religious beliefs and practices that allocate a lower status to women. In some Buddhist traditions, nuns cannot ordain to the same level as monks, most Buddhist archetypes of enlightenment remain male, and men hold positions of power and privilege within the majority of Buddhist organisations. This article focuses on recent controversy surrounding bhikkhuni ordination in the Thai Forest Tradition in Australia and the role of the Internet in these debates. The authors draw on data collected in interviews with key figures in Buddhism in Australia, including Venerable Chi Kwang Sunim, Ayya Nirodha, Ajahn Brahmavamso Mahathera, and Bhante Sujato, recorded as part of the “Buddhist Life Stories of Australia” research project. We argue that the international Buddhist women’s movement and its allies are creating and using digital counter-publics to advance gender parity in contemporary Buddhism. Online activism has not only accelerated the pace of progressive social change, but it has also been used by more conservative actors to try to thwart these changes and maintain their authority, although less successfully.
