Imagining the Course of Life: Self-Transformation in a Shan Buddhist Community

Nancy Eberhardt

Published by University of Hawaii Press 2006

Imagining the Course of Life

Self-Transformation in a Shan Buddhist Community

Nancy Eberhardt

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824841751

Overview
Contents

About this book

Imagining the Course of Life offers a rich portrait of rural life in contemporary Southeast Asia and an accessible introduction to the complexities of Theravada Buddhism as it is actually lived and experienced. It is both an ethnography of indigenous views of human development and a theoretical consideration of how any ethnopsychology is embedded in society and culture. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in a Shan village in northern Thailand, Nancy Eberhardt illustrates how indigenous theories of the life course are connected to local constructions of self and personhood. In the process, she draws our attention to contrasting models in the Euro-American tradition and invites us to reconsider how we think about the trajectory of a human life.

Moving beyond the entrenched categories that can hamper our understanding of other views, Imagining the Course of Life demonstrates the real-life connections between the "religious" and the "psychological." Eberhardt shows how such beliefs and practices are used, sometimes strategically, in people’s constructions of themselves, in their interpretations of others’ behavior, and in their attempts at social positioning. Individual chapters explore Shan ideas about the overall course of human development, from infancy to old age and beyond, and show how these ideas inform people’s understanding of personhood and maturity, gender and social inequality, illness and well-being, emotions and mental health.

Author / Editor information

Eberhardt Nancy :

Nancy Eberhardt is professor of anthropology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Note on Transcription Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Chapter 1. Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 2. Spirits, Souls, and Selves: The Body as a Contested Site Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
Chapter 3. Souls into Spirits: Death as Self-Transformation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
Chapter 4. Domesticating the Self Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Chapter 6. Marking Maturity: The Negotiation of Social Inequalities at Midlife Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	124
Chapter 7. The Ethnopsychology of Aging and Overall Development Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	147
Chapter 8. Imagined Lives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	191
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	201
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 224
Illustrations
- Other: 18 illus., 2 maps

eBook

Published: January 31, 2006
ISBN: 9780824841751