Navigating youth transitions as a buddhist: Privilege, reflexivity and sexuality

Sarah-Jane Page, Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article focuses on how young Buddhists (aged between 18 and 25, living in the UK, who typically had not been raised Buddhist) utilised reflexivity as a strategy to navigate youth transitions. Participants’ decision-making was premised on Buddhist ethics of avoiding harm, cultivating compassion, and embracing diversity. They scrutinised their actions to ensure they positioned themselves ethically in their everyday lives, particularly regarding sexuality. This reflexivity had a positive impact at the individual level, enabling them to construct a coherent biographical narrative. Yet, analysing this through the sociological lens of advantage and disadvantage, we posit that these accomplishments were facilitated by certain classed privileges. Their Buddhist identity was cultivated because of, rather than in spite of, their existing privileged location in the social strata, resulting in a consolidation of their already-privileged biographies. Our arguments are based on an in-depth mixed-method project which encompassed questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, and video diaries.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)380-398
Number of pages19
JournalJournal of Global Buddhism
Volume22
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Copyright (c) 2021 Sarah-Jane Page, Kam-Tuck Yip. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Funding: The research team would like to thank the AHRC/ESRC-funded Religion and Society Programme for funding this project.

Keywords

  • Buddhism
  • Privilege
  • Reflexivity
  • Sexual diversity
  • Sexual misconduct
  • Youth

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Navigating youth transitions as a buddhist: Privilege, reflexivity and sexuality'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this