CHANGE AND PERSISTENCE : A CASE STUDY OF THE BURMESE BUDDHIST TEMPLE IN SINGAPORE

Abstract

In this thesis, I am concerned to examine the transformation of the Burmese Buddhist Temple in Singapore from a small, folk-Buddhist temple to a large, organisationally complex temple. In doing so, I adopt in general a Weberian approach and draw specifically on Robert Bellah's work on religious evolution. In Chapter Two, the internal dynamics of the temple are described and analysed. The concept of "loose-coupling", from organisational theory, is employed to explicate the "operative mechanism" that allows the different constituents of the temple to co-exist simultaneously, whilst pursuing their different social and religious goals. In Chapter Three, the patterns of religiosity in the temple are described with reference to the process of rationalisation whereby some religious practices are emphasized and others discarded or de-emphasized. The concern of the Chapter Four are the external networks of the temple. It is within these relationships that the identity of the temple as well as the various patterns of religiosity are constantly being created, transformed and maintained. Here again, loose-coupling serves to enable all these processes to operate simultaneously. The concluding chapter ties in the three preceding chapters examining the internal dynamics, the patterns of religiosity and external relations in terms of rationalisation, highlighting loose-coupling as the quintessential feature, of the process of rationalisation, as well as that of modem forms of organisation.