Additional information
by Michel Chambon (Editor), James Ponniah (Editor), José Casanova (Foreword by)
Foreword by José Casanova
Asian Catholicism and the Remaking of Contemporary Families attends to the ways in which Asian Catholics navigate and negotiate the ethical ideals, normative discourses, and devotional practices of their religion as they construct and reconstruct their understandings of the family in contemporary society. In addition to family structures based on biological ties, contributors to this volume also examine other kinship groups based on systems of mutual care, highlighting the multiple perspectives and diverse values shared by Asian Catholics who produce and define social groupings that are recognized as families. Featuring case studies from South, Southeast, and East Asia, these chapters complicate the conventional view that Catholicism disrupts local cultures, considering not only how Asian families and Catholicism mutually constitute and transform each other in terms of interfaith dialogue, ethnic identity, and clergy-laity dynamics, but also how marriage, kinship, and filial piety become sites of active engagement and constant negotiation with their faith in the shaping and living of their family relations.
Author Biography
Michel Chambon (Editor)
Michel Chambon is a research fellow in the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore and a coordinator of the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics. He is author of Making Christ Present in China: Actor-Network Theory and the Anthropology of Christianity.
James Ponniah is assistant professor and head of the Department of Christian Studies at the University of Madras. He is author of Culture, Religion, and Home-Making in and Beyond South Asia and coeditor of Democratization of Indian Christianity: Hegemony, Accessibility, and Resistance. He also serves as editor in chief of the International Journal of Asian Christianity.
