Gendered Agency In Transcultural Hinduism And Buddhism

Focusing on complex entanglements of religion and gender from a diversity of perspectives, this book explores how women enact agencies in transcultural Hindu and Buddhist settings. The chapters draw on original, in-depth empirical research in various contexts in South Asian religious traditions. Today, in an increasing number of such contexts, women are able to undergo monastic and priestly education, receive ordination/initiation as nuns and priestesses, and are accepted as ascetic religious leaders. They are starting to establish new religious communities within conservative traditions, occupying religious leadership positions on par with men. This volume considers the historical background, contemporary trajectories, and potential impact of the emergence of these new and powerful female agencies in conservative South Asian religious traditions. It will be of particular interest to scholars of religion, women’s and gender studies, and South Asian studies.

"Focusing on complex entanglements of religion and gender from a diversity of perspectives, this book explores how women enact agencies in transcultural Hindu and Buddhist settings. The chapters draw on original, in-depth empirical research in various contexts in South Asian religious traditions. Today in an increasing number of such contexts women are able to undergo monastic and priestly education, receive ordination/initiation as nuns and priestesses, and are accepted as ascetic religious leaders. They are starting to establish new religious communities within conservative traditions, occupying religious leadership positions on par with men. This volume considers the historical background, contemporary trajectories, and potential impact of the emergence of these new and powerful female agencies in conservative South Asian religious traditions. It will be of particular interest to scholars of religion, women's and gender studies, and South Asian studies"--

Provide quality care for clients from culturally diverse backgrounds! Transcultural Nursing, 8th Edition shows you how to apply assessment and intervention strategies to individuals from a variety of different cultures. Based on Giger and Davidhizer’s unique transcultural model, this text helps you design culturally sensitive care with use of the six key aspects of cultural assessment: communication, time, space, social organization, environmental control, and biologic variations. Written by nursing educators Joyce Newman Giger and Linda G. Haddad, Transcultural Nursing shows how an understanding of cultural variations and individual patient needs will help you provide safe and effective care. UNIQUE! The six key aspects of cultural assessment each receive a full chapter of coverage, allowing you to also apply the Transcultural Assessment Model to cultures not covered in the text. Case studies and critical decision-making questions help you apply the assessment framework to practice. 23 chapters on specific cultural groups apply this assessment model to the clients most commonly encountered in United States health care settings, with nearly all chapters written by contributors who are part of that ethnic group. Client care plans in culture-specific chapters show how to apply principles to the needs of individuals. Review questions reinforce your understanding of cultural principles, with answers found in the back of the book. Discussions of spirituality throughout the text provide a holistic, integrated approach to culture, beliefs, and assessment. NEW co-author Dr. Linda Haddad is an internationally recognized cultural scholar who has taught nursing around the globe, has acted as an advisor and coordinator for the World Health Organization, and has published over 30 scholarly articles on nursing with a focus on understanding the cultural implication to care. UPDATED! Cultural chapters are completely revised to reflect the shifting experiences of cultural groups in our society.

In most mainstream traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism, women have for centuries largely been excluded from positions of religious and ritual leadership. However, as this volume shows, in an increasing number of late-20th-century and early-21st-century contexts, women can and do undergo monastic and priestly education; they can receive ordination/initiation as Buddhist nuns or Hindu priestesses; and they are accepted as religious and political leaders. Even though these processes still take place largely outside or at the margins of traditional religious institutions, it is clear that women are actually establishing new religious trends and currents. They are attracting followers, and they are occupying religious positions on par with men. At times women are filling a void left behind by male religious specialists who left the profession, and at times they are perceived as their rivals. In some cases, this process takes place in collaboration with male religious specialists, in others against the will of the women's male counterparts. However, in most cases we see both acceptance and resistance. Whether silently or with great fanfare, women are grasping new opportunities to occupy positions of leadership. This book offers ten in-depth case studies analysing culturally, historically, and geographically unique situations in order to explore the historical background, contemporary trajectories, and impact of the emergence of new and powerful forms of female agency in mostly conservative Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions.

Innumerable studies have appeared in recent decades about practically every aspect of women's lives in Western societies. The few such works on Buddhism have been quite limited in scope. In The Power of Denial, Bernard Faure takes an important step toward redressing this situation by boldly asking: does Buddhism offer women liberation or limitation? Continuing the innovative exploration of sexuality in Buddhism he began in The Red Thread, here he moves from his earlier focus on male monastic sexuality to Buddhist conceptions of women and constructions of gender. Faure argues that Buddhism is neither as sexist nor as egalitarian as is usually thought. Above all, he asserts, the study of Buddhism through the gender lens leads us to question what we uncritically call Buddhism, in the singular. Faure challenges the conventional view that the history of women in Buddhism is a linear narrative of progress from oppression to liberation. Examining Buddhist discourse on gender in traditions such as that of Japan, he shows that patriarchy--indeed, misogyny--has long been central to Buddhism. But women were not always silent, passive victims. Faure points to the central role not only of nuns and mothers (and wives) of monks but of female mediums and courtesans, whose colorful relations with Buddhist monks he considers in particular. Ultimately, Faure concludes that while Buddhism is, in practice, relentlessly misogynist, as far as misogynist discourses go it is one of the most flexible and open to contradiction. And, he suggests, unyielding in-depth examination can help revitalize Buddhism's deeper, more ancient egalitarianism and thus subvert its existing gender hierarchy. This groundbreaking book offers a fresh, comprehensive understanding of what Buddhism has to say about gender, and of what this really says about Buddhism, singular or plural.

Two topics of current critical interest, agency and materiality, are here explored in the context of their intersection with the divine. Specific case studies, emphasizing the ancient Near East but including treatments also of the European Middle Ages and ancient Greece, elucidate the nature and implications of this intersection: What is the relationship between the divine and the particular matter or physical form in which it is materially represented or mentally visualized? How do sacral or divine "things" act, and what is the source and nature of their agency? How might we productively define and think about anthropomorphism in relation to the divine? What is the relationship between the mental and the material image, and between the categories of object and image, image and likeness, and likeness and representation? Drawing on a broad range of written and pictorial sources, this volume is a novel contribution to the contemporary discourse on the functioning and communicative potential of the material and materialized divine as it is developing in the fields of anthropology, art history, and the history and cognitive science of religion.

This book sheds an interdisciplinary light on ‘transforming bodies’: bodies that have been subjected to, contributed to, or have resisted social transformations within religious or secular contexts in contemporary Europe. It explores the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality and religion that underpin embodied transformations. Using post-secularist, postcolonial and gender/queer perspectives, it aims to gain a better understanding of the orchestrations and effects of larger social transitions related to religion. This volume is the outcome of the intensive collaboration of the authors, who for years have been meeting regularly in Utrecht, the Netherlands, to discuss themes related to religion and ‘the challenge of difference’, with an added afterword by Prof. Pamela Klassen from the University of Toronto. The book is divided in three subsections that focus on particular types of embodiment: body politics in governmental and NGO organisations; the role of the body in literary and/or autobiographical narratives; and ethnographic case studies of bodies in daily life. Doing so, it provides an innovative exploration of contemporary religion and the body. It will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of Religious Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Post-Colonial Studies, Anthropology, Sociology, Theology, and Philosophy.

This book puts forward a new epistemological framework for a theory of religion and gender’s role in the public sphere. It provides a sophisticated understanding of gender and its relation to religion as a primarily performative category of knowledge production, rooting that understanding in case studies from around the world. Gender and religion are examined alongside biopolitics and the influence of capitalism, neoliberalism and empire. The book analyses the interdependence of religion, gender and new nationalisms in the Palestinian territories, South Africa and the USA, scrutinising the biopolitical interferences of nation states and dominant political and religious institutions. It then moves on to uncover counter-discourses and spaces of activism and agency in contexts such as East Germany and the Occupy Wall Street movement. Using gender, queer and trans theory in tandem with postcolonial and post-secular perspectives, readers are shown a more nuanced understanding of critical contemporary questions related to religion, gender and sexuality. This is a bold new take on religion, gender and public life. As such, it will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies and Gender Studies, as well as those working on religion’s interaction with Politics, Sociology and Social Activism.