Marseille 2007
| Abstract #357 - Cambodian Buddhist monks fighting against HIV/aids: aspects of community participation and attempt to build a local civil society | ||||
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Session: 6.39: Posters A (Poster) on Monday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Ms yuvany gnep - CReCSS/IRD, France |
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| Aim: Since Theravada Buddhism is the national religion of Cambodia, monks have been expected to contribute to HIV/aids prevention and care from the beginning of the epidemic spread. Because of its singularity, this situation is worth being explored: this country has been the first making the religious response to the epidemic an official priority of the government Ministry of Cults and Religions. This paper will describe Buddhist initiatives against HIV/aids, with paying special attention to each actor's conception of tradition, religion and community. | ||||
| Method / Issue: This study is part of the French-Cambodian IRD (UR 102) research programme "The Policies for the extension of ARV drugs in Cambodia: Perception, implementation, obstacles, impacts", with the support of French organisation Sidaction. Six months fieldwork research was conducted in 2005. Classical anthropological methodology was used, such as in-depth interviews, observation, and participation when ever possible. Different projects involving monks have been approached in various contexts, in order to compare their objectives and practices with development literature. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Ethnographical enquiry results show that forms and degrees of involvement and contents of interventions change considerably, depending on each case. Some NGO only expect monks to perform some religious "services", mainly consisting in broadcasting prevention message, performing meditation or counselling PLHA, in order to give them psychological and spiritual support. Such actions are somehow contradictory to some Buddhist principles, in particular those supposed to protect monks' purity, preventing some kind of interaction between them and lay people. In addition, although intervention of Buddhist clergy in health sector can certainly be seen as a traditional and usual matter in Khmer society, care and support in the context of HIV/aids rarely correspond to it. I intend to show how contacts with development organisations make a growing number of monks willing to face community disapproval, and find inventive ways of resolving those contradictions. When putting into practice some international norms of development, which take them as "natural" community leaders, some monks go even further than the paradigm of simple community participation and start by themselves their own organisation. When doing so, they finally come to express the wish to build a local form of civil society. Local and international development organisations often complain about a general loss of values in the Khmer society, due to the troubles of Khmer Rouge period. Thus, along with Buddhist monks, they pursue a general goal of restoring and educating society, and building a new "sense of solidarity", by helping PLHA. | ||||
| Discussion: The research reveals the gap between global and local dynamics and strategies, behind an apparent harmony. I will argue that although traditional Khmer values are supposed to be the framework of these initiatives, they actually become a new place to reinvent Buddhist practice and its role in Khmer society. | ||||
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