This panel showcases new research on religion in contemporary Southeast Asia. With particular attention to identity formation, these papers explore previously unexamined religious phenomena in mainland, insular, and diaspora communities. The first paper draws on ethnographic research into post-COVID mortuary practices among the Toraja ethnic group in the highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia to consider how they are being changed by and changing Christianity. A second paper investigates Buddhist responses to the 2021 military coup in Myanmar and the resultant resistance movements. A third paper questions the formation of Filipino transnational belonging through a study of Couples for Christ (CFC), a Catholic Charismatic organization active in Canada. And the final paper elucidates a constructive queer Christology for political-theological contestations in Indonesia. Together these papers invite a consideration of present patterns of religious concerns and creations in Southeast Asia.
This paper examines Christianity as it is found in the under-represented region of Southeast Asia; specifically, Christianity that is practiced by the Toraja ethnic group situated in the highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, and how they have expressed their faith indigenously. This paper will zoom in on the Toraja mortuary practices, which are heavily intertwined with the complexities of identity, traditional beliefs (Aluk to dolo), and ancestral cosmology, and how it plays a central role in understanding Toraja Christianity and what it means to be a Toraja Christian. Utilizing ethnographic research methods and encompassing participant observation, this paper presents a unique case study of a Toraja Christian family’s journey of funeral worship, traditional mortuary ritual, and the relocating of the deceased body post COVID-19 pandemic. This paper seeks to address questions such as: “How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Toraja mortuary rituals?” “How did interaction with Christianity change Toraja mortuary practices, and how did their mortuary practices change Christianity?”
The military coup in Myanmar on 1 February 2021 provoked massive resistance across the country. This resistance was soon conceptualized as the “Myanmar Spring Revolution”, envisioning a radically new political order in Myanmar. In the context of a deeply religious country, this paper seeks to answer two interrelated research questions. First, it seeks to understand the ways in which leading Buddhist monks have been supportive of the military coup, following what we define as a “Buddhist ideology of Order”. Second, it seeks to analyze the role of Buddhist revolutionary politics, asking what does “revolution” mean from a Buddhist point of view? Can we speak of a “Buddhist Revolution”, and if so, does that entail a radical transformation of Buddhism itself? The paper also raises ethical and methodological issues with regard to doing research on an unfolding “revolutionary situation”, with open-ended futures.
My research focuses on “servant subjectivity” and its role in the formation of a Filipino notion of “good” citizenship that revolves around service and sacrifice. While a few studies have been undertaken on Filipinos in Canada, particularly on the function of religion in migrant assimilation and settlement, such research does not consider how Filipinos’ religious link to their homeland continues to shape their citizenship and belonging in their new country. This oversight is surprising as Catholicism historically occupies an important role in the sociopolitical life in the Philippines, including citizen formation, social engagement, and migration. Addressing this gap, I undertake a case study on Couples for Christ (CFC), a Catholic Charismatic organization to explore how religion and politics link together to form subjects whose acts and dispositions support the moral and/or economic aim of their sending or receiving countries.
The existence of LGBTQ has been politicized, suppressed, and marginalized by the government of the Republic of Indonesia. Although queer people have been parts of Indonesia before the Dutch colonialization, in which gender and sexuality were seen in non-binary ways, people today see that queer people as abnormal and dangerous for the security of the country. In this presentation, I shall elucidate a constructive queer Christology for the political-theological contestations in Indonesia. By offering the Indonesian word lela, a person’s habitus to feel naturally joyful, to translate “queer,” I shall argue for a lela theology, a queer Indonesian theology wherein queerness is the meeting principle and a site of struggle for dignity and equity among the queer amid the rise of religious conservatism in the largest Muslim population in the world. Lela theology is essentially interreligious and queer.