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Fulbright-Hays Supports Fitzgerald's Research On Tibetan Buddhism

June 2, 2020

Fulbright-Hays Supports Fitzgerald's Research On Tibetan Buddhism

Image of Kati Fitzgerald

"Funding from Fulbright-Hays gave me the time and resources necessary to conduct long-term, ethnographic research with a small community in rural Qinghai," explains Kati Fitzgerald. A doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Studies, Fitzgerald conducted her dissertation research in China on No Pure Lands: The Contemporary Buddhism of Tibetan Lay Women with funding support from the prestigious Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship administered by the U.S. Department of Education, International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) office.

"Because my research is centered on the religious experiences and theories of contemporary women, it was essential to my research to have long periods of uninterrupted time in the field. During my Fulbright-Hays fellowship, I conducted interviews, participated in religious rituals, accompanied practitioners on local pilgrimages, photographed and documented domestic religious practices of nomadic families and gathered historical and experiential accounts of the religious transitions that have occurred in Qinghai over the past generation," reflects Fitzgerald.

Her research posits that the Buddhism of female lay practitioners—often labeled animistic, pagan, superstitious, non-philosophical, shamanistic—are in fact constituent of modern Tibetan Buddhism. Using ethnographic data collected in Nangchen, Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province, Fitzgerald argues for a definition of Tibetan Buddhism founded in female lay practice. 

"The materials that I gathered during my Fulbright-Hays have come to make up the majority of primary materials for my dissertation and will become essential sources for my first book project and multiple articles. This fieldwork time has had a positive impact on my graduate studies and my career as a whole."

 

**Article originally posted at https://oia.osu.edu/news/5694-fulbright-hays-supports-fitzgerald-s-research-on-tibetan-buddhism.html**