Buddhism and coffee: the transformation of locality and non-human personhood in Southern Laos
Among Jru' (Loven) uplanders in southern Laos, three different ecologies intersect. Animism focuses on local non-human persons like rice and earth spirits. Cash cropping elaborates translocal relationships with foreigners and technology, but reduces the extent of non-human personhood. Buddhism...
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
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July 2018
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| In: |
Sojourn
Year: 2018, Volume: 33, Issue: 2, Pages: 265-290 |
| ISSN: | 0217-9520 |
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| Author Notes: | Guido Sprenger |
| Summary: | Among Jru' (Loven) uplanders in southern Laos, three different ecologies intersect. Animism focuses on local non-human persons like rice and earth spirits. Cash cropping elaborates translocal relationships with foreigners and technology, but reduces the extent of non-human personhood. Buddhism stresses both the translocal character and the transcendence of non-human persons. Villages are now in transition from subsistence swidden agriculture to coffee production and from animism to Buddhism. These two processes reinforce each other, as the question of non-human personhood defines both the differences and the potential conflicts between ecologies. The translocalization of local reproductive cycles thus conditions the decreased importance of non-humans as persons. (Sojourn/GIGA) |
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| ISSN: | 0217-9520 |