Jonathan Mair

Jonathan Mair is a Research Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge and an associate member of the Department of Social Anthropology and the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit. His doctoral research on faith, attitudes to religious knowledge and ignorance was based on research among contemporary followers of Mongolian Buddhism in and around Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia. He is now planning a project on Buddhist ethics and self-cultivation that will be carried out in collaboration with anthropologists working in other Buddhist areas. Research interests include: anthropology of Buddhism; anthropology of religion; faith, belief and knowledge; the anthropology of ignorance; ethics and self-cultivation; and friendship and exchange.