RT Article
T1 Religiously Inspired Charitable Organizations (RICOs) and Their Quest for Religious Authority and Recognition in Contemporary China
JF Asian ethnology
VO 78
IS 1
SP 75
OP 100
A1 Fielder, Caroline
LA English
PB Nanzan Univ.
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1761813137
AB This article looks at the recent re-emergence of religiously inspired charitable organizations (RICOs) within Chinese society. Operating in an emergent religious marketplace, within a recently rehabilitated charitable sector, RICOs occupy a liminal position juxtaposed between the religious and secular. This article explores the ways in which the “Home” (a Buddhist RICO based in southwest China) and the “Center” (a Catholic RICO based in northeast China) make use of the ambiguity this provides to take on the role of what Hakan Yavuz calls “opportunity spaces,” operating as “social sites and vehicles for activism and the dissemination of meaning, identity, and cultural codes” (Yavuz 2003, ix) within wider society. Specifically, this article explores the ways that they draw on the material—objects, space, the body, and sensory perception—as a means of identity formation and in asserting religious authority in their quest to gain recognition in contemporary Chinese society.