The Blossoming of Ignorance: Uncertainty, Power and Syncretism Amongst Mongolian Buddhists

Abstract

Discussions of religious ignorance have arisen contemporaneously with postsocialist frustrations and uncertainties in Ulaanbaatar. My interlocutors responded to discourses of Buddhist ignorance in a number of apparently contradictory ways. Mistrust, religious reverence, ambivalence or fear often coexisted with excitement, exploration and creation. Through frequently describing their own or others' ignorance about Buddhism lay Buddhists indicated that Buddhism, and the renewed possibilities of knowledge or ignorance about Buddhism, was a site of considerable importance. Also indicated was a change in Buddhist epistemologies from the pre-socialist era. This article discusses how talk about religious ignorance in Ulaanbaatar presented itself in a variety of complementary and conflicting ways: as a reflection of anxiety over lost traditions, a source of power and deference, and as a blossoming space for hope and religious enthusiasm.

Toward an anthropology of plastics

“…Rather than trying to resolve the ambiguities of plastics, an anthropology of plastics should foreground these indeterminacies. Following from recent theories that emphasise doubt and uncertainty in the Anthropocene (Abrahms-Kavunenko, 2015Bubandt, 2014;Carey and Pedersen, 2017;Tsing, 2015), this research should be comfortable with the ambivalences, fuzziness, murkiness and the 'ugliness' of life (Dalby, 2016) and in doing so create messy representations of the incredibly complex worlds that we inhabit.…”

Tenuous blessings: The materiality of doubt in a Mongolian buddhist wealth calling ceremony

“…In Mongolia, Højer (2009), Buyandelger (2007, 2013), Pedersen (2011, 2017) and Abrahms-Kavunenko (2015a) have described how uncertainty rather than being anti-generative is productive of religious practices. Højer has detailed how the unknown capacities of a religious object can create an ambivalent situation in which religious things must be treated respectfully, yet may also occasion fear and aversion.…”

“…Likewise, in Buyandelger’s (2013) work, uncertainties surrounding the authenticity of shamans generate ever more ritual interventions, furthering the demand for ritual specialists, as lay people attempt to harness potent ritual efficacy to counter and navigate the misfortunes that have coincided with Mongolia’s entry into the global market. As I found in my own research on Buddhism in Ulaanbaatar, persistent discussions about religious ignorance indicate a vacuum of desired knowledge which stimulates an efflorescence of religious practices and ritual specialists (Abrahms-Kavunenko, 2015a).…”

Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies

“…3 Thanks in part to the debates discussed earlier, the anthropology of religion has provided particularly fertile ground for such explorations. Recent publications on this theme have clustered around a number of overlapping ethnographic contexts: the productive role of ignorance in ritual and religious reformulations following periods of momentous change (Abrams-Kavunenko 2013;Buyandelgeriyn 2007;Højer 2009); politics or economies of ignorance (Berliner 2005;Scott 2000; see also Mair et al 2012: 4-7); and ignorance as an individually cultivated ethical, strategic or self-protective project (Chua 2009;High 2012;Mair forthcoming;Vitebsky 2008).…”

“…A number of anthropologists have examined the implications of such discourses for contemporary Mongolian Buddhism and shamanism (Buyandelgeriyn 2007;Højer 2009;Abrams-Kavunenko 2013). Their ethnographies tease out the relationship between ignorance arising from actual losses and absences on the one hand and perceptions of (present) ignorance and (past) knowledge on the other, showing how their intersection produces new objects, interactions and realities.…”