Fieldwork

cultural transformation and ecological sustainability among the dai people in xishuangbanna

Posted on 26. Mar, 2012 by James Miller in BUDDHISM, BUDDHISM, BUDDHISM, BUDDHISM, conservation, dai, Fieldwork, holy hills, xishuangbanna

A conservation biologist by training, I first arrived in Xishuangbanna because of my interest in the ecological value of sacred groves called “holy hills,” fragments of old-growth rainforest that remain protected by indigenous Dai people despite rapid deforestation due to the proliferation of rubber plantations. The Dai protect holy hills because they believe their gods reside in these groves of large trees.

contested sacred space on maoshan

Posted on 07. Jan, 2012 by James Miller in Fieldwork

In May 2010 I had the opportunity to visit Maoshan, an important Daoist site in Jiangsu province (see here for my earlier post). One result of my fieldwork was that it gave a deeper insight as to the way Daoism and nature are represented together in contemporary Chinese culture. The evidence suggests that just as Daoist organizations are competing and also collaborating with local governments and other enterprises for control of the natural spaces in which monasteries are located, they are also engaged in ideological conflict over the meaning of these spaces.

mazu: marine ecoregion goddess

Posted on 15. Dec, 2011 by James Miller in Bioregionalism, Fieldwork, Mazu, Politics, TAIWAN

According to tradition, Mazu (Matsu) was a girl who lived in the late tenth century who was renowned for her assistance to seafarers. She was posthumously deified and attracted a wide cult throughout the southern China coastal area in the Ming dynasty. Over the past few centuries she has become one of the most popular local deities in China.

the religion and ecology of the blang minority nationality

Posted on 16. Aug, 2011 by James Miller in blang, CHINA, ECOLOGY, economy, Fieldwork, religion

The question of how to promote a culture of ecological sustainability in China took me this summer to conduct exploratory fieldwork among the Blang minority nationality, in Yunnan province, close to the border between China and Myanmar. The Blang are one of China’s smaller nationality groups and occupy a remote mountainous terrain that is a gruelling and dangerous three-hour drive from the county town of Menghai. The economy of the Blang village where I stayed was based increasingly on the production of tea.