Katherine Fitzgerald

My dissertation argues that the Buddhism of female lay practitioners—often labeled animistic, pagan, superstitious, non-philosophical, shamanistic—is in fact constituent of modern Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism is a living practice that cannot be extricated from its relationship with sacred space, local deities, this-worldly concerns, and violence. In my preliminary fieldwork, I have observed that the practices and reflections produced by Tibetan Buddhist women are able to reconcile the simultaneously philosophical and pragmatic nature of contemporary Tibetan Buddhism. I use ethnographic data from Nangchen, Qinghai Province, PRC and the diasporic communities of Bir and Tso Pema, Himachal Pradesh, India, to argue for a definition of Tibetan Buddhism founded in female practice.