Overview

De Jiao (""""Teaching of Virtue"""") is a China-born religious movement, based on spirit-writing and rooted in the tradition of the """"halls for good deeds,"""" which emerged in Chaozhou during the Sino-Japanese war. The book relates the fascinating process of its spread throughout Southeast Asia in the 1950s, and, more recently, from Thailand and Malaysia to post-Maoist China and the global world. Through a richly-documented multi-site ethnography of De Jiao congregations in the PRC, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, Bernard Formoso offers valuable insights into the adaptation of Overseas Chinese to sharply contrasted national polities, and the projective identity they build with relation to China. De Jiao is of special interest with regard to its organization and strategies which strongly reflect the managerial habits and entrepreneurial ethos of the Overseas Chinese businessmen. It has also built original bonding with symbols of the Chinese civilization whose greatness it claims to champion from the periphery. Accordingly, a central theme of the study is the role that such a religious movement may play to promote new forms of identification with the motherland as substitutes for loosened genealogical links. The book also offers a comprehensive interpretation of the contemporary practice of fu ji spirit-writing, and reconsiders the relation between unity and diversity in Chinese religion.

Full Product Details

9789971694920

Table of Contents

Reviews

The massive amount of ethnographic data collected by Formoso over the years virtually echoes throughout the book's narrative. His multi-sited research perceptively explains the impact the various diasporic environments have upon each of the local manifestations of D ji o. --Religious Studies Review

The massive amount of ethnographic data collected by Formoso over the years virtually echoes throughout the book's narrative. His multi-sited research perceptively explains the impact the various diasporic environments have upon each of the local manifestations of Dejiao. -- Religious Studies Review

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Countries Available