Benjamin H. Welsh, PhD, Associate Professor, Higher Education Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Benjamin H. Welsh, PhD, was raised in a small college town in North Carolina at a time when anti-Vietnam War protests and the Civil Rights Movement comingled in the streets and on the television screens. Born to musician father and dramatist-activist mother, Ben long sought ways to combine his birthright creativity with the social activism he witnessed growing up, eventually finding a home for both with his PhD in Education, Culture and Society from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently serving as faculty at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, he teaches majority minority students to find their voices as scholars in a world that has yet to match the vision for social justice he developed as a child.
Title: Culture through the Eyes of a Buddha: Ethnographic Research, Cultural Relativism and Transformation
The keynote address will introduce an approach to culture built on Buddhist psychological principles, including samsara, the skandhas, sunyata, and bodhicitta. The address will illustrate how ethnographic research methods can deepen our understanding of culture accordingly. Building on Max Weber’s (1864-1920) methods work, the address will argue that bodhicitta should be seen as vital to cultural relativism and the heart of all ethnographic (if not all qualitative) research. Finally, the address will discuss what the speaker sees as the goal of all bodhicitta-based ethnographic research methods: personal and cultural empowerment and transformation. The ethnographic research methods discussed will include autoethnography, mini-ethnography, phenomenology, and micro-ethnography, among others. Related concepts touched on will include social constructionism, contexts and habits.