Australian Journal of Anthropology最新文献

This introduction to the special issue examines various approaches to understanding religious change in Asia. It revisits models for religious change—particularly rupture and repair, both featured in prior TAJA issues—and acknowledges their usefulness while also highlighting their limitations. The author suggests framing religious change in Asia with a convergence paradigm as an alternative or supplement to rupture and repair. Convergence paradigms recognise that change is rarely unilateral, but is a dynamic process with many different actors colliding and aligning in ways that produce marked differences. The author locates specific catalysts of religious change in Asia—apocalypticism, revelation, hermeneutics, and technology—each the result of various convergences. The introduction concludes with a brief overview the articles included in this issue.

During the period between the seventh and 11th centuries, several religious innovations occurred in Indic religions (which I refer to anachronistically as ‘Hinduism’). In particular, during this period, we see the rise of tantric traditions based on a new revelation of texts, some of whose followers regarded themselves as transcending the older revelation of the Veda. This article explores a period of rapid religious transformation that significantly influenced mainstream society and politics, raising serious concerns within the orthodox Brahminical order. Despite the swift pace of change, I argue that the concept of convergence offers a valuable lens through which to understand the evolving dynamics of the belief systems that followed.

This article examines the expanding field of research on religious memes. Alongside a brief overview of current scholarly directions, it proposes new methodological avenues for studying memes that converge at the intersection of religion and internet humour. Drawing on a range of theoretical perspectives—from Walter Benjamin's reflections on modernity to H. Richard Niebuhr's typologies of religious engagement—it introduces fresh conceptual frameworks for analysis. Historical analogues of visual mass media from other periods of convergence are also explored, including the work of early 20th century Chinese Christian artists and contemporary Hong Kong activist artists, highlighting how visual culture has long served as a site for negotiating religious meaning in times of social transformation.

The framework emphasised in this special issue is convergence, a theoretical lens that challenges the dichotomous thinking embedded in the paradigms of rupture and repair. Across the case studies presented, from tantric Śaivism in medieval Kashmir to religious meme culture in the age of digital media, convergence emerges as a helpful framework for considering religious change. As mentioned in Kendall Marchman's introduction to this special issue, the convergence framework recognises that religious change is ‘rarely unilateral but is the result of many different actors and processes colliding and aligning in ways that produce marked differences’. The articles in this issue, each in its own way, powerfully illustrate this process. Taken together, they show portraits of how religions change, not by rupture alone, nor by repair alone, but through crosscurrents of influence and adaptation. This experience adds a new framework to our analytical repertoire and affirms the value of convergence as a generative approach to studying religious change.

To set the intellectual stage, Kendall Marchman's introduction challenges the dominance of rupture–repair models in the study of religious change, particularly within anthropological studies of Christianity. While acknowledging their utility, especially in cases where religious change appears traumatic or dramatic, Marchman critiques their limitations, including an overemphasis on singular events or specific actors. In contrast, convergence foregrounds the multiplicity of agents, temporal layers, and processes that shape transformation. Drawing on Henry Jenkins' notion of convergence culture, also used by Jonathan Johnson in his article, Marchman shows how religious change, like media change, emerges from the interplay of producers and consumers, texts and practices, doctrines and experiences. Religion is not simply shaped from above; instead, individuals co-create it in spaces of interaction and reception.

Gavin Flood's article on tantric religion and social change in medieval Kashmir provides a compelling case study of convergence at work. Flood resists characterisations of tantra as either radical rupture or esoteric outlier, instead presenting it as a product of layered innovation. Drawing on Alexis Sanderson's idea of the ‘Śaiva Age’ and world-systems theory, Flood shows how tantric texts and rituals emerged from socially marginal groups but were rapidly adopted by political elites seeking new forms of sacred authority.

Kendall Marchman's article extends the convergence framework into medieval Chinese Buddhism, where he explores how changes in eschatology, practice, and belief coalesced in the development of Pure Land Buddhism. Marchman identifies four key areas of convergence: belief in Sukhāvatī as a rebirth destination, the sense of decline in the Dharma, the practice of nianfo, and the anxiety surrounding death. These currents meet to generate an ‘ambient anxiety’ tha

The introduction of Pure Land practice and belief into medieval China changed the Buddhist landscape. Pure Land Buddhism offered a new pathway and new methods for achieving enlightenment. However, these changes were also a significant source of anxiety among the early community of Pure Land practitioners. This article uses the concept of convergence to critically analyse medieval Chinese Pure Land texts, demonstrating how four key changes—the introduction of Sukhāvatī as a rebirth destination, the belief that the Dharma may be in its final stages, the popularisation of Pure Land practice, and the preparations for and moment of death—converged to create a pervasive sense of anxiety among early Pure Land practitioners in medieval China.

This study explores the intersection of Buddhism and sociocultural changes in Thailand, focusing on the transition from traditional Buddhist chant to contemporary rap. Employing Pierre Bourdieu's theories of cultural capital and the sociology of music, this article aims to show how this shift in Buddhist music mirrors broader transformations within the religious and cultural landscape. Employing the concept of convergence helps us to highlight that Thailand's sociocultural changes have emerged from the dynamic interplay of multiple factors and actors over time. This approach also facilitates a nuanced exploration of the evolution of Buddhist music as a manifestation of the cultural flows and power dynamics within Buddhism that have shaped modern musical expressions. This study then highlights the implications of these findings for understanding cultural identity and community engagement within contemporary Buddhist practices, particularly in an increasingly globalised context.