Tibetan Buddhism in the Age of Waste

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Taking examples from lived Tibetan Buddhism, this article explores the role of religion in the generation, sorting, and handling of waste that is produced or ends up in the religious field. Rather than assuming that waste is the negative and worthless endpoint of consumption, it introduces the concepts of “waste imaginaries” and “waste trajectories” to examine the importance of religion in the relationship between how and why things come to be defined and sorted as waste and the ways in which they are then handled and treated. By examining how Tibetan Buddhists talk about and act around different kinds of waste, both sacred and banal, the article unfolds the moral politics of waste, showing how waste trajectories are negotiated through changing and sometimes conflicting waste imaginaries.
Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of the American Academy of Religion
Volume91
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)820-835
ISSN0002-7189
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2024, © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Academy of Religion. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.

ID: 390539304