Orientalism and the construction of the apolitical Buddhist subject

What is it about?

This piece explores the emergence of the figure of the apolitical Buddhist subject within classical orientalist writings, and the place of this figure within discourses concerning uprisings in Myanmar, Thailand and Tibet in recent years.

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Why is it important?

In recent years, numerous projects have explored the manner through which various subjectivities and practices have been forgotten, marginalized and/or depoliticized as a result of the dominance of orientalist conceptions of citizenship and the political. The emphasis of much of this literature has been on revealing and critically interrogating the depiction of subjects and practices associated with Islam or Islamic societies as non-political and their presence in the political realm as a threat to the political. However, the dominant western discourse of citizenship is not constituted only through its differentiation from a singular oriental subject. While all oriental subjects are designated as non-political and lacking the qualities of citizenship, they are not all constituted as such in the same way. So in order to understand the way in which political orientalism delimits and governs political subjectivity, it is necessary to investigate the specific mechanisms through which different subjects and practices are made to appear as the other of citizenship. In this piece, I investigate the place of Buddhism within discourses of political orientalism. By critiquing the way Buddhism and Buddhists appear within this discourse, the piece contributes to the formation of a space for the exploration and emergence of forms for political subjectivity that political orientalism may keep hidden, and thus, to an opening of the boundaries of citizenship.