Zen at Home: Understanding the Material Culture of British Buddhism

Description

Understanding humans through their material culture has long been a staple of archaeology and anthropology (Cochran & Beaudry, 2006), but psychology, even cultural psychology, has been slow to recognise the value of this mode of investigation into human experience and meaning; the psychology of religion in particular has often approached religious experience from an acultural, universalist perspective (Matis, 2023). The few existing studies into British Buddhism, for example, tend to focus on the interiority of individual experience. The domestic material culture of British Zen practitioners affords us an opportunity to examine the links between cultural beliefs, practices and embodied identity and how materiality both shapes and expresses spiritual identity and experience.

This visual grounded theory study into British Zen practitioners foregrounds the materiality of Zen in the participants’ lives to investigate the construction of their identities from individual through institutional levels as Zen and Buddhism are adopted into, adapt to, and adapt British culture. Participants' photos of their home practice spaces will be presented and discussed to explore how material culture reflects and shapes the psychological experiences of British practitioners engaging in spiritual cultivation and the construction of identity. The homes of Zen practitioners are a rich locus for understanding this materiality and its reflections of British practitioners’ negotiation of traditional spiritual practice in a private setting, as well as how Eastern thought is being embedded and changing in a Western culture.

Period	5 Aug 2024
Event title	24th International Eurotas Conference: Creative Bridges
Event type	Conference
Location	Oxford, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International