Descrizione del progetto
Affrontare l’eccesso e l’abbandono delle economie circolari buddiste nel Giappone contemporaneo
Sebbene per molti il buddismo e l’antimaterialismo possano andare a braccetto, secondo quanto si è prefisso di dimostrare il progetto REFUSE, finanziato dall’UE, la materialità buddista è il fattore trainante delle economie circolari di questa dottrina. REFUSE approfondirà il modo in cui gli scambi di materiali, soprattutto con i templi locali, comportano pratiche di eccesso e abbandono nel Giappone contemporaneo dell’era post-crescita ed esplorerà le modalità attraverso cui i doni buddisti sono in grado di sfidare la fattibilità dell’ideale di economica circolare mediante la generazione di rifiuti. Il progetto getterà luce sulla connessione esistente tra il buddismo contemporaneo e le pratiche buddiste di trattamento dell’accumulo e dell’abbandono dei regali buddisti, e gli impatti esercitati dalla generazione di rifiuti nell’ambito dell’attività religiosa.
Obiettivo
Anti-materialism is the most pervasive popular assumption about Buddhism that obscures Buddhism’s material presence and its environmental impacts. Problematising such moulds, this ethnographic project will demonstrate how Buddhist materiality drives Buddhist circular economies, rooted in practices of merit-making and inherited ritual labour. By tracing Buddhist objects’ biographies and illuminating the circular nature of Buddhist material exchanges, I investigate how things given to local temples generate excess and abandonment practices in contemporary post-growth Japan. Through histories of these objects and their relations, I uncover how demographic hyper-ageing, regional depopulation, and changing consumption patterns inform and disrupt Buddhist material exchanges: how family altars and other personal ritual items, as well as meritorious food, land and object donations get caught up in discard, disposal, and reuse cycles and what emotional, ethical, practical, and spiritual implications ensue. As such, I will illuminate how Buddhist practices for processing accumulation and abandonment of Buddhist gifts are key to understanding contemporary Buddhism, and the wider issues of consumption, recycling, and aspirational non-waste economies they inhabit. I will therefore consider Buddhist giving as forces that generate and handle excess/abandonment that challenge the viability of the circular economy ideal by producing waste. Global concern about waste continues to rise: this research interrogates the waste-making impacts of religious activity and assesseses the spiritual and practical implications of managing religious excess in the world’s fastest ageing society. It complements, and is complemented by, the research at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Contemporary Buddhist Studies interrogating Buddhist economic entanglements and waste that is created by Buddhist economic exchanges, thus supporting my development as an expert within this critical field.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-PF - MSCA-PFCoordinatore
1165 Kobenhavn
Danimarca