Religious Philanthropy in 21st Century China: the ethical, organisational and political hybridity of a Buddhist Charity Organisation.

本博士项目旨在研究21世纪头二十年当代中国宗教慈善事业的发展。通过收集中国最重要的佛教慈善机构之一仁爱基金会（LBF，笔名）丰富的原始数据，我试图更好地理解仁爱基金会成员、组织结构和与国家交往中体现的伦理话语。基于在三个不同城市的实地考察，我将尝试参与在构成LBF的慈善和宗教组织结构和事件的复杂组合中使用的主题类别。这次实地考察将试图探索看似世俗的结构与推动LBF发展的核心宗教网络之间的关系。通过这样做，这个案例研究让我们反思宗教在当代中国的意义，以及佛教徒通过新的混合道德话语和组织结构重新定义宗教实践的各种方式。这些网络及其事件的意义是灵活的，容纳了许多对善的不同理解，在这样做的过程中，LBF在当代中国日益多样化的道德地形中占据了有利地位。这个项目试图将道德带入焦点，不仅作为个人对社会规则的接受，而且作为一组不断发展的竞争话语，可以告诉我们当代中国。

This proposed PhD project sets out to study the growth of religious philanthropy in contemporary China over the first twodecades of the 21st century. By gathering rich, original data on the Loving Benevolence Foundation (LBF, pseudonym),one of China's most important Buddhist inspired charities, I seek to better understand the ethical discourses thatmanifest in LBF's members, its organisational structures, and engagements with the state. Based on fieldwork in threedifferent cities, I will attempt to engage with the emic categories employed within this complex assemblage ofphilanthropic and religious organisational structures and events that make up LBF. This fieldwork will attempt to explorethe relationship between seemingly secular structures and the core religious network that has driven LBF's growth. Indoing so this case study allows us to reflect on the meaning of religion in contemporary China, and the various waysBuddhists are redefining religious praxis, through new hybrid moral discourses and organisational structures. Themeaning of these networks and their events are flexible, accommodating many different understandings of the good, andin doing so LBF positions itself favourably in the increasingly diverse moral topography of contemporary China. Thisproject seeks to bring morality into the focus, not only as the individual's acceptance of societies rules, but also as anever evolving set of competing discourses that can tell us about contemporary China.