Until the 1950s Lao monks and monasteries still had a ciuciai role in providing education for large parts of the population. With an increasing encroachment of the state, however, educational politics shifted towards the establishment of a state school system and marginalized the monks' role in public education. The training in monasteries became increasingly linked to a separate, religious field. This article explores the implications and dynamics of these processes with regard to Bourdieu's theory of differentiation of the religious field and contemporary discussions of secularization. By employing a historical perspective spanning from the colonial period to 1975, the article explores the emergence and the shifting boundaries of the religious field. Largely focusing on institutional structures, I argue that through functional differentiation we witness a demarcation of a religious field and a simultaneous emergence of a secular sphere.
目次
Differentiation and the Religious Field: The Lao Temple as Public School 199 Establishing a State-school System without Monks 206 The State's Hierarchization of Fields and the Secular Sphere 210 Conclusion 215 Notes 216 References 219
