Cox, Laurence (2013) Rethinking Early Western Buddhists: Beachcomers, 'Going Native' and Dissident Orientalism. Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14 (1). pp. 116-133. ISSN 1463-9947
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Abstract
Recent research on the life of U Dhammaloka and other early western Buddhists in Asia
has interesting implications in relation to class, ethnicity and politics. ‘Beachcomber
Buddhists’ highlight the wider situation of ‘poor whites’ in Asia—needed by empire but
prone to defect from elite standards of behaviour designed to maintain imperial and
racial power. ‘Going native’, exemplified by the European bhikkhu, highlights the
difficulties faced by empire in policing these racial boundaries and the role of Asian
agency in early ‘western’ Buddhism. Finally, such ‘dissident Orientalism’ has political
implications, as with specifically Irish forms of solidarity with Asian anti-colonial
movements. Within the limits imposed by the data, this article rethinks ‘early western
Buddhism’ in Asia as a creative response to colonialism, shaped by Asian actors, marked
by cross-racial solidarity and oriented to alternative possible futures beyond empire.
Item Type: | Article |
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Additional Information: | This is the preprint version of the original published article, which is available at DOI:10.1080/14639947.2013.785242 |
Keywords: | Early Western Buddhists; Orientalism; U Dhammaloka; colonialism; class; ethnicity; politics; |
Academic Unit: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology |
Item ID: | 4403 |
Depositing User: | Dr. Laurence Cox |
Date Deposited: | 02 Jul 2013 15:12 |
Journal or Publication Title: | Contemporary Buddhism: An Interdisciplinary Journal |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis |
Refereed: | No |
Related URLs: | |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/4403 |
Use Licence: | This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here |
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