Jovan Maud
I completed my PhD with the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie in 2008. My thesis, entitled The Sacred Borderland, deals with the production of Buddhist practices and institutions in the southern Thai borderland and how they are implicated in the production of place and processes of state formation in that region. My main area of interest is on religion in contemporary societies, particularly the connections between religion, power and transnational processes.
Between 2006 and 2010 I worked in the Master of Applied Anthropology program at Macquarie and was acting Director of the program in 2009. This involvement has meant I’ve become interested in the ways anthropology is being applied in various domains within and outside the academy. My posts to this blog represent this interest and my desire to understand the manner in which anthropology is developing in response to new social and economic forces and to put into action the notion that anthropology can be a publically engaged discipline.
As of January 2010 I have been at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Multireligious and Multiethnic Societies in Goettingen, Germany, as a postdoctoral fellow. I hope though that the blog will help me to maintain a link with the Department of Anthropology at Macquarie.
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Third Tone Devil
Culture Matters 
Because of your interest in religious pilgrimage, I think you might find The 1918 Shikoku Pilgrimage of Takamure Itsue: an English translation of Musume Junreiki interesting. Takamure, at the age of 24, made the 1400 km. pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku and wrote 105 newspaper articles while doing so. These articles made her well known in Japan and later she became famous as an editor, scholar, historian of Japanese women, anarchist, abused wife, home leaving wife, and poet. She was keenly observant and her articles tell us much about her fellow pilgrims and about life in Japan in 1918.
If you are interested in reading reviews of the book, there are several online from such publications as the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, the Japan Times, Studies in Travel Writing, Magistra, and so on. The book is available from Amazon.
Sincerely,
Susan Tennant
Bowen Island, BC Canada
Thank you for the tip Susan. It sounds like a fascinating read.
how about the famous Matsu Pilgrimmage in Taiwan every year in the spring, a 9 day journey by foot and bicycle or motorcucle or truck pr bus from Taichung to Chiayi and back. Ever done that. Look into it. google info me at bikolang @ GMAIL DOT COM