Burning for a Cause: Four Factors in Successful Political (and Religious) Self-Immolation Examined in Relation to Alleged Falun Gong Fanatics in Tiananmen Square
This article theorizes the self-immolation of alleged Falun Gong practitioners in Tiananmen Square in 2001 in relation to literature on martyrdom, self-immolation, and political protest. It explores the cultural context in relation to Buddhist traditions of self-immolation, Chinese political protest...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
[2015]
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| In: |
Politics and religion
Year: 2015, Volume: 8, Issue: 4, Pages: 797-817 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | This article theorizes the self-immolation of alleged Falun Gong practitioners in Tiananmen Square in 2001 in relation to literature on martyrdom, self-immolation, and political protest. It explores the cultural context in relation to Buddhist traditions of self-immolation, Chinese political protest, and other uses of self-immolation as political protest. It will seek to expand the analysis of why these self-immolations may be said to have failed as a form of protest, and present a set of four key factors. Issues of legitimation and authority in the events and their representation will be raised, especially the contested nature of whether the self-immolations were religious, looking at the different meanings of this term in Chinese and Western contexts. It is argued that both secular and religious self-immolation can be seen as legitimate in the public sphere. |
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| ISSN: | 1755-0491 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Politics and religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S175504831500070X |