Podcast appearances and mentions of matthew j walton

Farewell lecture for the Aung San Suu Kyi Senior Research Fellow in Modern Burmese Studies, Matthew J. Walton The field of Burma Studies has expanded rapidly in the past decade. Part of this growth has been fuelled by changes in Myanmar’s political conditions, as research opportunities have opened up on topics and in regions where the military government previously restricted access. Additionally, the historical divide between scholars and activists is gradually fading, with much innovative academic work being informed by scholars’ experience with rights groups or civil society organisations. Another welcome development has been an increase in scholars from Myanmar who are more represented in academic venues. At the same time, this window of openness threatens to be brief, particularly given the understandable pall cast over academic engagement with Myanmar due to the current Rohingya crisis. It is not just the unacceptable violence in Rakhine State that compels critical reflection on scholarly activities, but also the persistence of violence and political repression across the country. This violence has both increased international attention on Myanmar and decreased the productivity of discussions on the country, as it has entrenched polarised debate. This talk will consider dynamics within the field of Burma Studies and how recent events have affected scholarly work. Reflecting on the past five years of activities of the Programme on Modern Burmese Studies as well as the work of other scholars, I will put forward a case for principled, critical engagement. Such engagement must acknowledge and embrace the inevitable political positioning of any scholarship on Myanmar but simultaneously insist on taking seriously concerns related to intersectionality, collaboration, spaces for collective discussion, the uses of our scholarship, and persistent limitations on whose voices are included in the field of Burma Studies.

Matthew J Walton, Ma Khin Mar Mar Kyi and Aye Thein speak at the Southeast Asia Seminar on 14 February 2018. Myanmar's formal religious authority, the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee (Ma Ha Na), was formed in the 1980s, as part of the military government's efforts to centralise religious control. Popular opinion sees Ma Ha Na as the tool of previous military governments. The contemporary 'Buddhist nationalist' movement is led by the Buddha Dhamma Parahita Foundation (formerly known as Ma Ba Tha), a group that has had an increasingly contentious relationship with Myanmar's formal political and religious authorities. Often portrayed simply as a xenophobic, anti-Muslim movement, we argue that Ma Ba Tha can instead be understood as a group that many of its members and leading voices see as a vehicle to challenge the formal religious hierarchy, viewed by many monks as undemocratic and rigid. This struggle over spiritual authority is usually missed in analyses of pro-Buddhist 'nationalist' activism in Myanmar. Yet, this perspective can help explain the group’s persistent and widespread popularity and also portends a more divisive conflict brewing in the country, between formal religious authorities and a growing alternative centre of spiritual influence. Matthew J Walton, Ma Khin Mar Mar Kyi and Aye Thein are all members of the research team for the ESRC-funded project 'Understanding 'Buddhist Nationalism' in Myanmar: Religion, Gender, Identity, and Conflict in a Political Transition.' This two year research project seeks to critically assess and disaggregate the category of 'Buddhist nationalism' in Myanmar by focusing on the creation, deployment, and critical response of differently positioned groups and individuals in Myanmar to various 'Buddhist' and 'nationalist' narratives, with particular regard to ethnic, geographic and gendered identities.

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterized as comprising of a new kind of religious nationalism. For anyone confused by this phenomenon, and wondering how the religious thought of Buddhist monks and laypeople in Myanmar informs and motivates political action, Matthew J. Walton‘s much awaited Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar (Cambridge University Press, 2017) is essential reading. Drawing on years of research and relying predominantly on Burmese language sources, Walton throughout the book presents Burmese Buddhist political ideas in a manner that is at once intelligible to readers outside the tradition but also true to the logics internal to a distinctive moral universe. After offering a concise intellectual and political history, he patiently sets out the doctrinal building blocks with which to build a comparative theory of political order and freedom. In doing so, he also lays the foundations for an understanding of how and why conceptions and practices of democracy in Myanmar today might not correspond to those of deductive political science or international aid programs, but nevertheless be internally intelligible and coherent to their intended audience. Matthew Walton joins New Books in Southeast Asian Studies to talk about Buddhist ideas of political participation and social welfare, interpretive plasticity, politics and the political, Hobbes, the hybrid political thought of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the intellectual legacy of Gustaaf Houtman. Nick Cheesman is a fellow at the College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University and in 2016-17 a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He can be reached at nick.cheesman@anu.edu.au Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Phyu Phyu Thi and Matthew J. Walton speak at the Southeast Asia Seminar on 1 March 2017. Research and training conducted by the Myanmar Media and Society (M.MAS) project in 2015 encountered persistent expressions of fear and antagonism directed towards religious Others as well as articulated memories of solidarity and peace. People would often seek to reconcile the contradiction between these memories and contemporary narratives that demonize religious Others. Our research suggests that these attempts at reconciling contradiction can make important contributions to peace. This paper will draw on oral history research conducted throughout 2016 in six cities in Myanmar among populations of different faiths that seeks to uncover people’s memories of inter-religious peaceful co-existence.

As Burma (Myanmar) opens up to the world during a period of rapid change, Matthew J Walton, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, explores the effects on Buddhist identities. Matthew Walton examines how Buddhists in the country are defining and redefining themselves, with reference to other religious groups, their own histories and a global Buddhist community, and how these identities are disseminated and contested through new communication technologies, new religious practices, and reimagined notions of what it means to be 'Buddhist' in Burma. The above gallery talk takes place in he British Museum, alongside an exhibition entitled "Pilgrims, healers and wizards Buddhism and religious practices in Burma and Thailand."

Dr Matthew J Walton gives a talk for the 2014 OxPeace conference, session 1a; 'The more things change, the more they stay the same: Challenges to peace in a transtioning Myanmar'.

This talk examines the recent rise of violence perpetrated by Buddhist nationalists on Muslim and Christian residents in Sri Lanka and Myanmar. The recent emergence of Buddhist nationalist movements in Myanmar and Sri Lank--represented most prominently by the 969 Movement and Bodu Bala Sena, respectively--has resulted in violence directed against Muslims and Christians as well as a renewed attention to questions of religious tolerance and state-religion relations in the two countries. This talk will examine historical and contemporary connections between these two Theravada Buddhist countries and consider their different trajectories of monastic involvement in politics. Why have such similar movements emerged, given the countries' quite different socio-political positions, Myanmar in the midst of an uncertain transition out of poverty and military rule, and Sri Lanka coming off the brutal conclusion of a civil war in which the state emerged the victor? Of particular interest here are the ideologies and arguments deployed by Buddhist actors in both countries to justify their attitudes and actions towards non-Buddhists. Talk given by Dr Matthew J Walton, Aung San Suu Kyi Senior Research Fellow in Modern Burmese Studies, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford