Zhongguoshi zongjiao shengtai: Qingyan zongjiao duoyangxing ge’an yanjiu 中国式宗教生态: 青岩宗教多样性个案研究 by Chen Xiaoyi 陈晓毅 (review)

214 Journal of Chinese Religions Zhongguoshi zongjiao shengtai: Qingyan zongjiao duoyangxing ge’an yanjiu 中国式宗教生态：青岩宗教多样性个案研究 Chen Xiaoyi 陈晓毅. Beijing: Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe 社会科学文献 出版社, 2008. 544 pages. ISBN 978-7-80230-927-2. RMB 65.00 paper. Based on field research in the town of Qingyan 青岩 (Guizhou 贵州 province) between 2001 and 2007, the author provides a meticulous overview of the religious landscape of an area that is characterized by religious and ethnic pluralism. Han 汉, Miao 苗, and Buyi 布依 share different varieties of popular religions (minsu zongjiao 民俗宗教), Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Christianity. Chen Xiaoyi seeks to analyze this complicated situation by means of his notion of “religious ecology” (zongjiao shengtai), which treats the local religious scene as a quasi-ecological system that tends toward a state of harmonious balance among its component parts. In this view, religious conflicts such as a famous massacre of Catholics in 1861 (Qingyan jiao’an 青岩教案) appear as temporary losses of balance that are corrected in the next phase of “ecological” adjustment. The author uses this approach to develop a critique of Samuel Huntington’s notion of the “clash of civilizations” by stressing that religions in a Chinese context tend to harmonize rather than antagonize and may therefore play a positive role in the creation of a harmonious society. He also calls on both scholars and policy-makers to give greater weight to the important role of popular religion in mitigating and mediating religious conflict and thus maintaining a systemic balance in the local religious ecology. Shanghai minjian xinyang yanjiu 上海民间信仰研究 Fan Ying 范荧. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe 上海人民出版社, 2006. 383 pages. ISBN 978-7-208-06012-6. RMB 27.50 paper. An overview of elements of popular religion in the Shanghai area, mostly from the Ming dynasty to the Republican period, based on written sources such as gazetteers, “brush notes,” inscriptions, and popular tales and fiction. The book’s five parts focus in turn on (1) the historical development of popular religion from the Neolithic to the Yuan period, (2) “magical” practices, (3) popular deities, (4) temple fairs, and (5) taboos and avoidances. ...