Author: wbtd

Scholar and activist, working on anthropology, ecology and Buddhism. Long-term research in ethnobiology of Asian mountain communities and culturally signficant landscapes (e.g. sacred sites, protected areas) and anthropogenic bidoversity (biocultural diversity). Visiting fellow at University of Hamburg.
  • Buddhist exclusivism in Sri Lanka

    Is this modernism, exclusivism or fundamentalism? I’ve got a chapter coming out (in Sharing the Sacra, ed. Glenn Bowman) in which I discuss local responses to a similar attitude among...

  • Tweets and twinges

    I’ve been using twitter, linked to SecondLife and to FaceBook, as a way of communicating publicly. It’s a good thing because the FaceBook pages act like a sort of commentary;...

  • Studentisms

    Okay, okay, I know everyone does these, but mine are much funnier mistakes. On the left, what the student wrote. On the right, the correct word. ‘rest bite’                respite ‘peat bog’                pīṭha

  • My office smells

    I walked in the door of my office this morning, having trod across the Old Aberdeen landscape. Rotting leaves, frozen ponds, barking dogs. Having heaved one sack each of papers...

  • Open source at the blunt edge.

    Here is an object lesson in why free and open source software is a symbol of good ethics. The other day, I had a PDF sent to me by the...