Author Affiliation: University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
關鍵詞
Anthropology of knowledge; Burma; Buddhism; meditation
摘要
This article considers Fredrik Barth's call to reconceptualize how anthropologists approach the study of complex societies through a study of how knowledge is differentially embodied by individuals within a population and how these bodies of knowledge are produced and sustained. Burma's lay meditation movement serves as a case study for how knowledge communities emerge. The focus is on how people who acquire meditation-derived knowledge, as contrasted with cosmological and traditional forms of Buddhist knowledge, practice, and identity, comprise a community of knowers. This membership is based on individual experiences in meditation and does not conform to membership in prior social and religious categories. The case provides an example of how knowledge is constituted, justified, and shared, within an emergent community.
目次
THE FIELDWORKER'S INTRODUCTION 195 MASS LAY MEDITATION MOVEMENT IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT 197 MEDITATION KNOWLEDGE 198 SOCIAL IDENTITY AND KNOWLEDGE COMMUNITY 200 CONCLUSION 204 NOTES 206
