The power of Buddhist homelands: secularism, space and sovereignty

Abstract

ABSTRACT This Afterword draws the essays in this special collection together by highlighting how the ‘Buddhist Homeland’ imaginary can be mobilized to advance the agendas of marginalized communities in non-Buddhist state and diasporic spaces. Buddhist practices and identities may be seen as acceptable forms of counter-hegemonic practice, which are not perceived to challenge sovereignty itself in the way that other forms of mobilization from below may. This is in part due to the often deterritorialized nature of Buddhist networks themselves, making it possible to separate claims of belonging to Buddhist places from political claims to sovereignty over specific territorial spaces.