"This volume is an ethnography describing the dynamics of practical Buddhism among the Thai-Lao who reside in northeast Thailand, focusing on the historical process of village formation and socio-cultural changes within and surrounding the village life-world." --p. 1.

Spirits of the Place is a rare and timely contribution to our understanding of religious culture in Laos and Southeast Asia. Most often studied as a part of Thai, Vietnamese, or Khmer history, Laos remains a terra incognita to most Westerners—and to many of the people living throughout Asia as

British Columbia is Canada's most ethnically diverse province. Yet in general we need to know more about the diversity of religions that accompanied immigrants to the province and how they are practised today. This book offers intimate portraits of local religious groups, including Hindus and Sikhs from South Asia; Buddhist

"The centrality of death rituals has in anthropologically informed studies of Buddhism been little documented. The current volume brings together a range of perspectives on Buddhist death rituals including ethnographic, textual, historical and theoretically informed accounts, and presents the diversity of the Buddhist funeral cultures of mainland Southeast Asia and

Buddhist Fury reveals the Buddhist parameters of the conflict in southern Thailand. Monks zealously advocate Buddhist nationalism, act as covert military officers, and equip themselves with guns. Buddhist Fury displays the methods by which religion alters the nature of the conflict and the dangers that come with this transformation.