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

这一提出的博士项目旨在研究当代中国在21世纪头20年里宗教慈善事业的发展。通过收集爱心慈善基金会(化名)的丰富原始数据，我试图更好地理解爱心慈善基金会成员、组织结构以及与国家的互动中体现的伦理话语。爱心慈善基金会是中国最重要的佛教启发慈善机构之一。基于在三个不同城市的实地调查，我将尝试参与到这个慈善和宗教组织结构和活动的复杂集合中，这些活动构成了LBF。这项田野工作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。在这样做的时候，这个案例研究让我们反思宗教在当代中国中的意义，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。这些网络及其活动的意义是灵活的，容纳了对善的许多不同理解，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。这个项目试图让道德成为焦点，不仅是因为个人对社会规则的接受，也是作为一套不断演变的相互竞争的话语，可以告诉我们当代中国的情况。

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.