Remembering with Respect

History, Social Memory and the Cross-Border Journeys of a Charismatic Lue Monk

Bibliographic Data

ID2174680
AuthorsWasan Panyagaew (Chiang Mai University, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume14
Issue1
Pages23-40
Publication date2013-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanberra Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0314-9099 • E-ISSN: 1740-9314
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14442213.2012.739199
OpenAlexW2098163909
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited22

For over three decades, people's mobility in the borderlands of the upper Mekong region has been reactivated, but simultaneously regulated, by changing state policy. Since the 1990s greater regional cooperation between China and mainland southeast Asian countries in trade and development has resulted in massive and accelerated flows of culture, commodities, capital and information across the borders. This article traces the cross-border movements of one charismatic Buddhist monk, Phra Khru Weruwanpithak (1929–2005), which took place over two decades from the early 1980s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. I argue that this monk's journeys played a significant role in Theravada revivalism in the localities he visited, both in his hometown in northern Thailand, and in other Lue communities in the eastern Shan state of Burma and in Sipsong Panna in southwest China. The practical, religious and architectural activities undertaken by this border-crossing monk not only restored Theravada Buddhist sites in the region, but also created a new sense of place and belonging among the Lue, who have long lived across national borders in the upper Mekong region

Archaeology · Buddhism · Charisma · China · Ethnology · Geography · Mainland · Mainland China · Political science · State (computer science) · Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography · Asian Studies and History · History · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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