Mari Miyamoto is a Professor at Keio University, and currently a guest researcher at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, Leiden University. Her research is based on extensive fieldwork in Bhutan and the Buddhist societies of the eastern Himalayas, exploring themes that intersect environmentalism, sustainability, heritagisation, food cosmology, and multispecies ethnography. In recent years, she has examined the contemporary revival of Buddhism in the Himalayan region through practices of slaughter, meat consumption, and animal release in pastoral communities, seeking to reconsider the entanglement of religious ethics and ecological environment. She is the principal investigator of the JSPS-funded project “The Future of Environmental Conservation in the Marginalization of Animism and the Buddhist Precept against Killing in Contemporary Bhutan.”

More information about Mari Miyamoto

Mari Miyamoto is a professor at Keio University in Japan and is currently affiliated with CADS as a guest researcher hosted by Dr. Erik de Maaker. Her recent research interests focus on re-examining the entanglements between food, livelihoods, more-than-human entities, and landscapes in Eastern Himalayan societies through the lens of Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation, animal sacrifices in nature worship, and meat-eating in lifeworld.

During the 2014-15 academic year, as a Newton International Fellow of the British Academy and Royal Society, Mari conducted research at SOAS, University of London, on transformations in religion and environmental policy during Bhutan's democratic transition. She has also received multiple grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) and currently serves as Principal Investigator for the project ‘The Marginalisation of Animism in Contemporary Bhutan and the Future of Environmental Conservation in Buddhist Precepts Prohibiting Killing’. This research project explores the potential of animism in the Anthropocene from multi-species ethnographic perspectives.（https://nrid.nii.ac.jp/en/nrid/1000060570984/）

Recent Publications

Her recent publications include “Animal Slaughter and Religious Nationalism in Bhutan” with Jan Magnusson and Frank J. Korom (Asian Ethnology), “Contesting Values of Brewing 'Chang' in a National Park of Bhutan” (Springer), “Challenges from ‘Buddhist Environmentalism’: Environmental Policies and Pastoralists in a National Park in Bhutan” (Springer), “National Road Construction and a New Labour Requisition in Contemporary Bhutan” (The Hiyoshi Review of the Social Science), and “A Form of 'Democratization Project' in Contemporary Bhutan: Being Apolitical and Being Religious” (Springer).

Miyamoto's major publications, including her doctoral dissertation, have primarily been published in Japanese. They include the following: “Taming ‘deviation’ and ‘peripheralization’ in a Bhutanese highland society: Pulling autonomous life by hand” (Annual Report of Socio-Anthropology), “Highland Pastoralist Society and its Transformation in Bhutan from the Perspective of Nep Relationship” (JCAS Review), “Living with Yaks in the Himalayas: What Boundaries Bhutanese Pastoralists Cross?” (Fukyosha), “What is essential in the life of Himalayan pastoralists? Exchange and division of labor” (Nagoya University of Foreign Studies Press), “Animal Life, Death, and Humanity: Cultural Anthropology of Slaughter and Carnivory” (Keio University Press), “Bare Slaughter and Anonymous Butchers: Slaughter Regulations and the Escalating Practice of Buddhist Ceremony of Releasing Captive Animals in Contemporary Bhutan” (Shunpu-sha Press).

Her other publications in relation with Buddhist cultures including “From ‘Our Temple’ to ‘the Monastery's Temple’: Transformation of the World of Konyer (temple's caretaker) in Rural Bhutan” (The Hiyoshi Review of the Social Science), “Festivals and Rituals of Modern Bhutan: ‘Ter Cham,’ a Faceless Dance” (Rikkyo University Centre for Asian Area Studies), “The Future of the ‘Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan’: Elections and Buddhist Monks in Democratization” (KEIO Institute of East Asian Studie), “The Boundary between the Sacred and the Secular in Contemporary Bhutan: Cham Dancers and Their Transitions” (Rikkyo University Centre for Asian Area Studies).

Among Mari's early writings are also the following: “Formation of the Framework for Environmental Conservation in Modern Bhutan” (Asian and African Area Studie) and “Nation Making of Contemporary Bhutan: Politics for Self-Portraits Seen Through the Governmental Policies for Culture and Environment” (The Jinbun Gakuho).

CV Mari Miyamoto (2025)