Charles Keyes (PhD 1967, Cornell)

Research Interests:
Interpretive anthropology, religion and political-economic change, ethnic group relations, sociology of Theravada Buddhism; Southeast Asia, especially Thailand & Vietnam

"A major focus of my research, centered primarily on the Buddhist world of Southeast Asia, is rooted in the seminal work of Max Weber concerning the relationship between religion, politics and economics especially as manifest under conditions created by modernity. I have also sought, in a related vein, to pursue the question of how modern states intrude into everyday lives, with particular reference to Thailand where I have carried out long-term fieldwork beginning in the 1960s. Closely related to this work has been my interest in how minority peoples have responded to projects of nation-building that all modern states have undertaken. I have focused my work on this issue through fieldwork in northern Thailand, Laos, and northern Vietnam. My work on ethnic responses to nation-building in Southeast Asia provided the basis for theoretical reflection on the nature of ethnicity and the relationship between ethnicity and nationalism."