NUS - Temples, Trust and Trade: Chinese Temple Networks in Southeast Asia
https://ari.nus.edu.sg/Event/Detail/9d7c98cf-7bb9-4b71-8fce-275a19de9fa7?from=singlemessage
The spread of religious networks is one of the most important
cultural aspects of globalization today. This conference will bring
together scholars based in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines,
Thailand, Vietnam and China to examine specific case studies of the
historical formation and contemporary flourishing of certain of the
trade, temple and trust networks that emerged from the spread of
migration of Chinese from the south and southeast coast of China to
Southeast Asia.
Underlying and funding many of these temples and
association were the great Chinese business families and extended
lineages, the different dialect groups and their huiguan (regional
business associations) and tongxianghui (native place associations), and
the brotherhoods that enforced their mutually exclusive limits and
economic niches. This conference seek papers that focus on Chinese
temples, institutions, and business families with transnational
networks. Papers that can relate the spread of these networks to the
role of the temples/associations in their local context are welcome.
Other papers may wish to explore the interactions between temples and
associations in a particular region over time. Despite the centrality
of these networks, there are still very few published case studies of
their ritual and economic activities. Thus the conference will lead to a
publication that will fill a major gap in the historiography of
Southeast Asian Chinese communities.
This conference will focus
on local historical sources from Southeast Asia to explore the role of
and the interaction between the Chinese temple, family-lineage, and
native place association networks in Southeast Asia in building long
distance trust networks. All of these institutions played a part in the
formation of a unique form of Chinese capitalism, which formed within
the transnational networks linking south and southeast China to
Southeast Asia. Some religious networks rejected national identities in
place of either more local identities or more universal identities.
Conference papers will examine the aspirations that can be found within
many such religious networks, as these values motivated people to
transfer wealth into religious merit and temple building, to
re-circulate their wealth through charities, or more radically, to
direct their profits into ritual fasting or support for the Dharma.
The
networks examined in this conference moved and continue to flow past
political borders and boundaries. They are incredibly flexible and
developed fluid networking strategies. Many transcend or reshape ethnic
or kinship boundaries while bringing their members into very specific
regimes of exchange and reciprocity and mobilization. New religious
networks in Southeast Asia have continually layered themselves onto the
kaleidoscopic pattern of pre-existing networks, drawing upon the
reservoir of shared symbolic capital within these networks, redirecting
these resources towards their own ends, sometimes moralizing or
expanding the sense of the self, or introducing a sense of belonging to a
universal community beyond the bounds of the nation or any ethnicity.
The networks discussed in the conference can also be seen as part of the
ongoing expansion of religious connectivity and communication in Asia.
Many networks are now exploring contemporary techniques and using new
technologies to spread their message(s) and connect their adherents
together across Southeast Asia and the world as a whole. This conference
will solicit papers that explore a broad range of religious networks
within the Chinese communities of Southeast Asia.
REGISTRATION
Admission
is free, and seats are available on a first come, first served basis.
Please email to minghua.tay@nus.edu.sg to indicate your interest to
attend the conference.
CONTACT DETAILS
Conference Convenor
Prof Kenneth Dean
Asia Research Institute, and Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore
Contact Person(s)
Minghua TAY
尊敬的柯木林先生:
您好。
新加坡國立大學亞洲研究中心將在11月21日至22日,舉辦為期兩天的學術研討會。詳情請見以下的資料介紹。
我們會在第二天早上(11月22日)舉辦一場閉門式的圓桌會議,邀請一些專家學者為本場研討會和我們的研究課題提供意見。素仰 閣下學問深廣,善治新馬華社團體與文化研究,享譽學界。值此學術良緣,敦請您出席這場圓桌會議,惠賜高見。 耑此 順頌 時祺。
丁荷生教授
中文系主任,新加坡國立大學
宗教與國際化研究小組組長,亞洲研究中心,新加坡國立大學中文系
Roundtable discussion on day 2: Conference on Temples, Trust and Trade: Chinese Temple Networks in Southeast Asia, 21-22 Nov