Remaking Local Knowledge
The Reinterpretation of Morality Through Religious Teachings and Folklore
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3378876 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Meng Cao (0000-0001-7112-4703, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 1354 |
| Publication date | 2024-11-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel15111354 |
| OpenAlex | W4404144913 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 19 |
Popular religion in China has been very active ever since the late 1970s, with the restoration of temples and statues, a rising numbers of believers, and people's increasing enthusiasm for religious activities. Folklore, rituals and legends are also 'borrowed' to reinvent tradition to fit in the strand of intangible cultural heritage. Therefore, seemingly reviving religions are also going through the process of de-religionization. Based on my ethnographic work in a Chinese county, I attempted to understand religion's role in constructing local knowledge and how religious practices are affected by urbanization as well as globalization. The revival of institutional religions like Buddhism and Protestantism comes at the cost of popular religion or popular religious practices. Local deities lost the battle of competing with regional deities, which led to the simplification of local religious knowledge, a decrease in the diversity of deities and the tendency of convergence in terms of deities' functions and believers' appeals. A once complicated celestial hierarchy mirroring the imperial dynasty has been replaced by a more universal understanding of either bodhi in Buddhism or salvation in Protestantism. Local knowledge is reinterpreted by these religious teachings in the name of a higher cause of morality
Aesthetics · Epistemology · Folklore · Morality · Reinterpretation · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Asian Studies and History · Philosophy · Religious studies · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Modalities of doing religion and ritual polytropy
Expectation, Affection and Responsibility
Religion in China and Its Modern Fate
The Sacred Village
The Anthropology of Religion, Charisma and Ghosts
Materialising Oceania
The consumption of ritual and the changing values of filial piety in ancestor worship
Calamity Meat and Cows of Abundance
The Enchantment of Wealth
Chinese Civilisation in the Present
The Religious Question in Modern China
Gift and market in the Chinese religious economy
The Flourishing of Religion in Post-Mao China and the Anthropological Category of Religion
The Flowing of the Sacred Space
Chinese Buddhism as a Social Force
Seeking the Christian Tutelage
Diviners with Membership and Certificates
Morality, Gift and Market
Christian Conversion and the Re-imagining of Illness and Healthcare in Rural China
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |