Over the last several decades, the Dalai Lama has championed the preservation of Tibetan cultural heritage and the endowments it offers the global community in greater mental health, well-being and sustained happiness through its rich contributions in contemplative thought and practice. In this effort, he has actively supported and engaged in collaborations with scientists to investigate physiologic and psychologic changes that these contemplative practices engender in order to provide evidence of their benefits and encourage greater integration of practices supporting happiness and well-being globally. He has framed such initiatives under a paradigm of a universal responsibility to support greater global wellness, and a commitment to uncovering the truth of such determinants through rich conversations across different intellectual traditions, epistemological angles, geographic populations and cultural frameworks. One of the phenomena that has gained particular attention is that of tukdam (Tib., thugs dam), a meditative state achieved at the time of death in which the practitioner gains ultimate realization into the nature of mind. In this practice, the practitioner also suspends the normal chronology of physiologic processes at the time of death, including postponing rigor mortis, putrefaction and decay for up to three weeks, and maintaining a suppleness and radiance to the skin and complexion. This panel will explore themes of truth and responsibility through epistemic anthropological angles that investigate different approaches, methodologies and assumptions in the research on tukdam. These different approaches draw from constituencies situated within neuroscience, biomedicine, anthropology, STS, and religious studies fields, as well as those from Buddhist, Tibetan medical and Tibetan cultural communities. Paper presentations will look at how research teams aim to explore a uniquely cultural approach to death and dying, the way it informs understandings of normal death processes, and its potential applications to wider populations and aims. The presentations and discussant perspectives will highlight the competing truths and responsibilities that these multidisciplinary investigations uncover in conceptualizations of an ideal death, a life well-lived, valuing cultural heritage and ‘responsible’ investigations in the sciences and humanities. Presentations will draw upon the ongoing research of the foremost multidisciplinary teams and researchers engaged in the study of tukdam. Panelists will also explore the points of intersection between scientific research on tukdam and the Tibetan lay and religious contexts in which tukdam plays an important structural role in shaping local paradigms and perspectives on wellness, health, and end-of-life care. The panel invites attendees to reflect with them upon the following: to what degree are the various and overlapping constituencies in this research asked to respond, reflect, and incorporate the different modes of evidence underlying such truths? To whom is this research giving evidence and to what ends? And finally, in what ways do the multiple paradigms employed in tukdam research shape the kinds of “truth” that could be uncovered?

Death and Happiness: Exploring the Temporalities of the Meditated Death and Everyday Life in Tibetan Buddhist Practice of Tukdam

Tukdam Phenomenon: Paradigms in Shaping Ontological Realities, Discourses with Science, and Tibetan Cultural Identity

technical paper

Truth and Responsibility
“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Many consider anthropology to be a holistic social science dedicated to cross-cultural understanding as a way to reduce bigotry and more fully comprehend “what it means to be human.” Others push against this readily circulated origin story, arguing that “human” remains a highly contested, political category—evident as the presumed set of rights and protections associated with the “human” continue to be stripped away violently in the communities in which some of us live and work. Which violent histories and epistemologies must anthropologists take responsibility for in telling truth(s) about the discipline’s development? How do the dual histories of settler colonialism and slavery continue to influence anthropological thought and practices? In these political times, how can anthropologists throughout the globe work to secure a capacious, progressive vision of the human? How might movements for anti-racism, decoloniality, queer liberation, and healing such as #BlackLivesMatter, #ProtectMaunaKea, and #MeToo push a future anthropology out of the ashes of the anthropological past? Finally, what are the limits and possibilities of the anthropological imagination?

Across subfields, we find truths in patterns of human behavior, language, evolution, and cultural worlds. Industry-positioned anthropologists do this by extending the boundaries of the discipline not as an administrative solution to job shortages but as a source of intervention and knowledge production. Increasingly, anthropologists who make use of the scientific method question how status and identity help to decide which facts come to represent truth. How might quantitative researchers use our methods to identify patterned truths, and what responsibility do we hold in challenging conventional wisdom about these patterns? What responsibility do we have to both our colleagues and larger publics, to push toward increased transparency and ethical grounding in our data collection, analysis, and presentation?

Pedagogy is a key medium for the communication of anthropological truths. Which (and whose) truths are foregrounded in our curricula? What are the possibilities for a liberatory pedagogy in a precarious, “post-truth” era? Conferences, museums, organizing spaces, and classrooms are sites where pedagogy and various forms of communication can help us interrogate the performativity of truth. How might anthropologists conceive of truth performances? Might visual, aural, and choreographic performances during AAA sessions offer anthropologists alternative genres for truth-telling and truth-making that provoke discussions about responsibility?

In accordance with the urgency of the year’s theme, the questions posed in this call for papers do not have easy answers. The hope is that those who submit proposals will take up these questions and engage in collective thinking and imagining about the truths we hold, the truths we challenge, and the responsibilities we bear in co-creating a free and more equitable world. All panel proposals should have a statement about how the panel has incorporated the goals of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and/or analysis of power.

Executive Session proposals have already been selected and speak directly to the theme “Truth and Responsibility.” To practice the critical reflexivity this call for papers invites, we asked that Executive Session submissions explicitly address the diversity of session participants, such as organizational/institutional affiliation, career stage, race, ethnicity, disability, sexuality, class, religion, national identity, and gender. Proposals for Executive Sessions that demonstrated a commitment to equity and inclusion and/or a clear analysis of power (i.e. anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist, decolonial, anti-ableist, feminist, anti-transphobic, anti-xenophobic, etc) were given priority. We are excited to be in conversation with residents of the Baltimore region and look forward to the discussions, performances, and actions generated by the dynamic group of anthropologists attending the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting.

AAA Annual Meeting 2021

“Truth and Responsibility” is a call to reimagine anthropology to meet the demands of the present moment. The imperative to bear witness, take action, and be held accountable to the truths we write and circulate invites us to reflect on our responsibility in reckoning with disciplinary histories, harms, and possibilities. To whom are we giving evidence and toward what ends? For whom are we writing? To whom are we accountable, and in what ways? We are thrilled to announce the theme of the 2021 AAA Annual Meeting to be held in Baltimore, MD: Truth and Responsibility.

Tenzin Namdul

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Presentations

Death and Happiness: Exploring the Temporalities of the Meditated Death and Everyday Life in Tibetan Buddhist Practice of Tukdam