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The Merit of Meat: Karma as Social Fact among Food Charities in Vietnam
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2025
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In this article, I use Emile Durkheim ’s theory of “social facts” to examine Buddhist charity movements in Vietnam. Durkheim defines social facts as the beliefs and customs required to belong in a community. I use Durkheim's theory to analyze how volunteer groups develop Buddhist cosmologies with distinct social facts about human subjectivity, ethics, and karma. My study traces how social facts cause different programming outcomes like decisions to serve meat-based or vegetarian meals among food charities. My findings are significant among studies of religious humanitarianism for suggesting that grassroots movements spread through heterogeneous values and cosmologies, even within a shared tradition.
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