Descrizione del progetto
Delineare l’identità e il ruolo storico del Bhutan nel sud-est asiatico
Fin dal XIX secolo, il forte impegno dei maestri buddisti bhutanesi nei confronti della politica ha caratterizzato in modo determinate le relazioni diplomatiche del Bhutan con il Tibet e l’Impero anglo-indiano. Il progetto BhutldBuddh, del programma di azioni Marie Skłodowska-Curie, indaga il processo di costruzione dell’identità e della nazione del Bhutan mediante l’analisi di una raccolta finora non tradotta di fonti testuali bhutanesi e tibetane. I risultati getteranno luce sulla storia religiosa e politica del Bhutan a partire dal 1800 che ha condotto all’attuale modello di sviluppo sostenibile della felicità interna lorda (FIL), un approccio olistico all’attuazione della felicità e del benessere della popolazione. Per la prima volta, questo progetto affronterà sistematicamente il ruolo storico del Bhutan nella connessione dell’Asia meridionale, dell’Impero anglo-indiano e dell’Asia orientale dal punto di vista bhutanese.
Obiettivo
This research project is an investigation of identity- and nation-building in eighteenth-century Bhutan with a particular focus on the agency of Buddhist masters as important diplomats and Bhutan's entangled history with Tibet. This will enable a novel understanding of Bhutan's religious and political history, particularly its Buddhism-induced development model of Gross National Happiness (GNH) that has not yet received systematic historical analysis in religious studies in Europe despite its global popularity as an example of alternative sustainable economic models. Furthermore, for the first time, Bhutan's historical role in linking South Asia, the British Raj, and East Asia will be systematically addressed. The research output will significantly advance both fields - that of Tibetology and religious studies. The innovative research design combines historical-philological methods by analyzing a thus far untranslated corpus of Bhutanese/Tibetan primary sources with a theoretical framework from religious studies focusing on identity and social differentiation. Therefore, the project is in its methodology, output, and impact inter-disciplinary. The researcher will produce a draft for a single monograph publication for habilitation in Germany. The proposed project involves as the researcher a German Tibetologist trained in Germany, Canada, India, and Bhutan reintegrating to Germany to work with a religious/Buddhist studies scholar at Leipzig University. This will enable substantial training for the researcher in religious studies and impactful two-way knowledge exchange between the researcher and the host institution due to the international experience of the researcher. An intersectional secondment at The British Library Endangered Archives Programme (London) will provide further Tibetological training in (digital) archival work, palaeography, and codicology, and produce globally accessible research data about this digitized Bhutanese/Tibetan primary source corpus.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinatore
04109 Leipzig
Germania