Kai Shmushko

Background

About Kai Shmushko

I am cultural anthropologist working as a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the sociology department at the University of Amsterdam. Currently working within the project RECOGNITION,(religious cognition among migrants). In this project, I am researching the multifaceted Chinese communities in the Netherlands while contributing to the development of cross-culturally comparable measurements to asses religion among migrants. For my doctoral thesis affiliated with Tel Aviv University, I have studied contemporary Buddhism in China culminating with a thesis titled: “Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in 21st century China- Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics” (Published with LUP 2024) My academic grounding is China Studies, Religious studies, and Cultural Anthropology with a strong orientation towards ethnographic and mixed methods research, online and field-based ethnography. My research stands in the nexus of several primary interests: Religion and spirituality among Chinese societies and diasporic Chinese communities; heritage and material culture of Chinese religions; Chinese religious and cultural production in new media and religion and politics of the Chinese sphere. I teach and have taught (university level) in the field of religious studies, sociology, comparative religion and comparative philosophy of religion.