Indigenous Christianity in Southeast Asia and the Wider Pacific Region

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel Proposal Application

Abstract

Societies around the world have made Christianity their own. Among ethnic minorities in Southeast Asia, they have commonly done so with an open enthusiasm and marked rapidity. Boundary maintenance and identity construction have been proposed to explain both why they adopt Christianity en masse and the rapidity of their conversion. While Christianity indeed serves as an emblem of identity or a vehicle for maintaining ethnic boundaries in a region where Buddhism and Islam are dominant, such explanations have a tendency to treat Christianity as simply a secondary phenomenon of underlying political and social situations, leaving the beliefs, practices, and meanings of indigenous Christianity insufficiently explored. Building on the recent developments in the anthropology of Christianity, this panel seeks to further develop conceptualizations of Christianity’s historical development in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region, and to explore local engagements with the religion’s universalizing and transcendental claims. Drawing from ethnographies and historical analyses from different parts of the region, the papers in this panel examine the relationship between Christianity and modernity, globalization and localization, and religious engagement in Christianity that comes in a wide variety of forms. By placing locally contextualized and culturally specific processes in a crucial position in the exploration of these issues, we hope to contribute fresh insights from the region for new ways of thinking about Christianity.

Area of Study

• Southeast Asia

Session Organizer

• Shu-Yuan Yang, Academia Sinica

Chair

• Shu-Yuan Yang, Academia Sinica

Individual Presentations

• "Religion" and the Moralization of Semiotic Form: Views from the Christian Pacific - Webb Keane, University of Michigan

• Protestantism, Cargo, and Treasure: The Acquisition of Wealth among the the Bugkalot (Ilongot) of Northern Luzon, Philippines - Shu-Yuan Yang, Academia Sinica

• Indigenization and Exclusiveness: Truth Claim and the Redefinition of Religion among the Lahu Christians in Thailand - Tatsuki Kataoka, Kyoto University

• Syncretism between Indigenous and Christian Beliefs among the Amis of Taiwan - Shu-Ling Yeh, National Taitung University