Conclusion

The overall aim of the book was to analyse the postcolonial and decolonial critique of the study of religion, with a particular focus on Buddhist studies in the West and in Japan. Aspects of the new decolonial critique with its identitarian focus is relevant, but with its own flaws not salient in itself as a new general theory. This concluding chapter recapitulates the insights from previous chapters and manoeuvres beyond the ideologised ‘culture wars’ and between objectivist and subjectivist positions. In doing so, it will claim to identify a third way that both accounts for relevant decolonial ‘critical studies’ and insists on scholarship that does not endorse identity politics. A main trait of the academic study of religion is thus not to normatively (and religiously) claim to have the correct answer, but rather to build robust prerequisites for asking the tricky question: who owns Buddhism

Archaeology · Buddhism · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Asian Studies and History · Chinese history and philosophy · History