CUSAS: Fuyuan Luo, “Dharma and Diplomacy: Fieldwork with Tibetan Lamas and their Han Chinese followers – plus reflections on working for the United Nations”

Fuyuan Luo, “Dharma and Diplomacy: Fieldwork with Tibetan Lamas and their Han Chinese followers – plus reflections on working for the United Nations”

 

This talk explores the contemporary practice of Tibetan Buddhism in Chengdu, a city in southwestern China where Han Chinese make up the majority population. Rather than viewing Tibetan Buddhism as a tradition passively received or consumed by Han Chinese, it examines how Chengdu-based followers and Tibetan lamas actively co-produce the space, authority, and affect of Tibetan Buddhism in urban life. Drawing on fieldwork conducted across domestic, monastic, and communal settings, the talk explores how Tibetan Buddhist practice has shifted from monasteries to urban homes; how religious authority is reconfigured through the mobility and hosting of Tibetan lamas; and how affect is cultivated through embodied, material, and sensory engagements of what I call “heartscape.” Through ethnographic vignettes, I offer a practice-oriented, spatially attentive, affectively informed analysis of the contemporary Han Chinese engagements in Tibetan Buddhism. By the end of the talk, I hope to demonstrate that the contemporary practice of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese followers emerges as a process of spatial, relational, and experiential reconfiguration that responds to China’s specific socio-political conditions while maintaining recognizable continuity with Tibetan Buddhist traditions. In addition, I will briefly reflect on applied fieldwork beyond academia, drawing on my experience working at the United Nations. I hope to show how fieldwork offers a crucial counterpoint to the reductionism that shapes much contemporary governance and knowledge production.

 

Fuyuan Luo is a PhD candidate in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. Her thesis, Lamas and Followers: Doing Tibetan Buddhism in Contemporary Chengdu, explores the revival and reconfiguration of Tibetan Buddhism among Han Chinese practitioners in urban China. She holds an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Columbia University and a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from Brown University. Beyond academia, Fuyuan has served as a Political Affairs Consultant at the United Nations, where she co-authored three regional roadmaps on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) in Central Asia. Her policy work focuses on inclusive governance and sustainable social development.