Panel 56: The Work of Religion in Southeast Asia

Chair: Taylor Easum, Indiana State University

Panelists

Huong Nguyen, University of Arkansas, “‘We Are Making Our Own Deity’: The Cult of King Trieu from Perspective of Religious Sites’ Committees”

In this paper, I am trying to discover the role of committee members of such sites. I particularly focus on those who are local people and are appointed into these positions by other villagers in order to help governmental Culture and Information offices directly manage, maintain and protect these holy places. Normally, such a committee is a relatively fixed personnel organization that is structured with one head and one or two deputy heads and other members. Depending on which level a given religious site is ranked, officials working in governmental organizations will be appointed into this committee. In general, the head is either chairperson or, sometimes can be the vice chairperson of the People’s Committee. The deputy head must be one who is already appointed into an administrative position, such as the head of a given village, an official who oversees local cultural activities, or occasionally a commoner who best knows about the local religious site. Other members are representatives of the offices of police, army, accountancy, and certainly, designators of local inhabitants. The establishment, rights, obligations and activities of this committee are strictly stipulated by the Law on Belief and Religion promulgated by the Vietnamese National Assembly. How the religious site’s committee act as a vehicle for governmental interferences of the authorities with local spiritual activities will be thoroughly investigated in the next chapter. My task here is trying to clarify the positions, obligations and rights of the committees ‘members who are commoners participating in every activitie at religious sites in order to promote the development of this cult.

Joe Evans, Villanova University, and Sr. Ngoc Nguyen, LHC, Marquette University, “Ethical Responsibility for the Catholic Church to Act to End Human Trafficking: Nepal and Vietnam Case Studies”

Pope Francis states that‚ “Human trafficking is violence!‚” but that ‚“it should be acknowledged that very little has been done to address why many people are tricked or sold into trafficking and slavery.‚” The Catholic Church describes human trafficking as the largest manifestation of modern-day slavery and a horrific crime against the basic dignity and rights of the human person. (USCCB) Over 700,000 persons suffer physical, mental, and psychological trauma from being trafficked globally each year, often because of poverty and oppression. Nepal and Vietnam, where the Church is a minority, share many contextual similarities related to the problem of human trafficking. These include marginalized mountainous areas, shared borders and cross-border trafficking, socio-economic disparities, and frequent natural disasters that result in displacement to exacerbate the problem. In this paper, we consider Nepal and Vietnam as case studies to argue that the Catholic Church has an ethical responsibility to actively contribute to anti-human trafficking efforts. This research will show how small Churches in Asia can contribute to addressing this problem in their efforts to promote and preserve human dignity. We first briefly examine the challenges of human trafficking in Nepal and Vietnam and highlight the available resources and Catholic teaching that demand intervention. From this, we analyze the ethical responsibility for the Church to take action. Finally, we provide recommendations on how the Church in these two unique, yet comparable, examples can address the threat of trafficking.

L Diana Seng Hkawn, University of Notre Dame, “Exploring Kachin Traditional Practices as a Decolonial Approach to Healing Trauma in Kachin”

The Kachins, a tribal people in Burma, China and India, have rich traditions in arts, music, poetry, and dance, which were central to their religion and social gathering. Many of their animistic rituals are disregarded after conversion to Christianity around 19th century. Due to the prolonged civil war that started after post-independence in Burma, Kachin people are experiencing physical, economic, social, and psychological difficulties, especially trauma. During the researcher’s prior experience conducting psychosocial interventions in the area, several gaps of applying western methods were noticed. This study will conduct desk research on existing mental health interventions applied in the Kachin context as well as Kachin traditional practices of healing, to identify more culturally congruent methods for addressing the collective trauma of Kachin people experiencing civil war. With this project, the researcher aims to shift from the individual-focused, Western trauma healing approaches and towards approaches grounded in traditional Kachin resources. By focusing on Kachin-specific practices, the research takes a decolonial stance in order to highlight appropriate and effective healing strategies that contribute to a more culturally sensitive approach to alleviate the psychological distress or trauma experienced by the Kachin communities.

Rachel DeGaugh, University of Notre Dame, “Charity, Philosophy, and Disability Rights: Buddhist and Christian Constructions of Disability in Asia”

The influence of Buddhist philosophy and the charity paradigm on the public’s understanding of social rights and services for disabled people in Asian cultures warrants particular attention. The well-being and dignity of disabled people should not rely simply on non-disabled individuals’ good deeds. Failure to recognize that disabled people’s right to equal citizenship is a political and societal rather than a familial or personal responsibility makes their welfare precarious and absolves the authorities of responsibility for ensuring disabled people’s rights as full citizens. This proposal seeks to explain how disability has been constructed in Asian cultures, in particular, the important role Buddhism has played in attitudes toward and treatment of disabled people, as well as how disability is constructed in different religions, namely Buddhism and Christianity, both among regionally and culturally related countries and across Asian and Western societies. Such studies can provide valuable insights into cultural variations between the Global North and the Global South, which may inform the policies and practices supporting social justice for disabled people in various settings. By politically and culturally situating accessibility and the social rights of disabled people, the proposal aims to extend a scholarly understanding of disability beyond the Western and Global North paradigms and calls attention to the need to identify societal values and cultural barriers that generate unfair outcomes camouflaged as good deeds while also calling for cultural and geopolitical sensitivity in the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in Asian contexts.