Cosmology, Prophets, and Rebellion Among the Buddhist Karen in Burma and Thailand

This article probes into the historical details and the present practices of Karen Buddhist movements. The Christian Karen have had a dominant position in the media and scientific publications. However, the Buddhists are probably still the majority among the Pwo and Sgaw Karen. The recent split between the Christian Karen National Union and the Democratic Karen Buddhist Organization is a dramatic expression of the political role of religion. Religion, religious movements, and prophetic leaders are important elements in Karen identification and their relationship with neighboring peoples, states, and colonizers. Religious cosmology and rituals are not merely the essentials of their world view but also constitute modes of empowerment, which are analyzed and discussed in this paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork begun in 1970 among the Karen in Thailand on the border with Burma, as well as on archival research in London.Cet article examine le détail historique et les pratiques actuelles des mouvements bouddhistes karen. Alors que les Karen chrétiens ont joui d’une forte visibilité médiatique et scientifique, les bouddhistes sont probablement encore majoritaires parmi les Karen Pwo et Sgaw. La récente scission entre l’Union Nationale Karen (chrétienne) et l’Organisation Bouddhiste Karen Démocratique exprime de façon dramatique le rôle politique de la religion. La religion, les mouvements religieux et les chefs prophétiques sont autant d’importants facteurs identitaires pour les Karen dans leurs relations avec les peuples voisins, les États et les colonisateurs. La cosmogonie et les rituels religieux, formant la base de la vision karen du monde, constituent aussi des modes d’habilitation, que cet article analyse et discute à partir de données ethnographiques collectées depuis 1970 parmi les Karen de Thaïlande à la frontière birmane et d’une recherche d’archives à Londres

Creating Pan-Karen Identity: The Wrist Tying Ceremony in the United States

A movement to unite all Karen-language speaking people under the banner of a distinct and unified Karen identity has been afoot for more than a century. Buddhist and Christian Karens from Burma, now living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, are forging – and contesting – a universal Karen identity through the celebration of the “traditional” wrist tying ceremony. This articulation of pan-Karen identity is an example of Baumann and Gingrich\u27s (2004) theory of identity construction, which they call a “grammar of encompassment.” This case study shows that the theory, which claims that instances of encompassment are often contested by the encompassed (that is, the subordinate people whose alterity is denied), must be extended. In the United States, it is the encompassers (that is, the Christians who have greater economic and political power) who are the most deeply troubled by the denial of difference demanded by the discourse of encompassment