Translating Buddhism and the Politics of Ownership: Between Asia(s) and West(s)

Abstract

Corresponding author: Caroline Starkey, University of Leeds. Email: C.Starkey@leeds.ac.uk This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ISSN 1527-6457 (online). All the articles within this volume deal, in some way, with the multi-dimensional and multi-scalar translation and transference of Buddhist practice that takes place between Asia and the West. The title of this volume is key to the methodological approach of all its contributors: translations between Asia(s) and West(s). Translation, as viewed by the authors here, is not a linear movement from point A to point B (reaching its zenith at point B) but a dynamic interaction which functions to provide a meeting place for exchange between cultures, communities, ethnicities, in-religious traditions, and between religions themselves. An interest in uncovering these varied points of cultural convergence underpins the approach which we as authors have applied in our research. Like many scholars of contemporary Buddhism, we have found theoretical grounding in the work of Thomas Tweed. His Crossing and Dwelling (2006) enacts our own approach to the study of Buddhism, and to and religion more generally, because it views religions as constantly changing in response to the specificities of location and culture. He notes within his definition that: