Title: Faith, Resistance, and Penal Cultures in Southeast Asia

Speaker: Tobias Brander (Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Date: Friday 13 March, 2026

Time: 1:00-2:30pm

Mode: In-person

Venue: Room 213, Humanities Building, New Asia College, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

Prisons constitute a fascinating yet little accessible field of ethnographic inquiry. As closed societies, they develop their own internal economies, social hierarchies, linguistic codes, and cultural practices in response to the fundamental human need for community, meaning, and survival under conditions of enforced deprivation. This lecture introduces the field of prison anthropology and some areas of relevance for anthropological studies, including the theme of power and governance of inmate societies, the influence of organized crime networks, and the complex interplay between resistance and cooperation that characterizes social life in prison.

Drawing on cross-cultural comparative research across penal institutions in Southeast Asia, the lecture explores how distinct national, ethnic, and religious contexts shape the cultures that emerge behind prison walls. Against this broader ethnographic backdrop, the lecture will consider the speaker’s own research interest: the role of religious faith as a form of resistance within penal environments. Rather than treating religion merely as a rehabilitative tool imposed from outside, this lecture argues that religious practices emerging from among inmate communities represent a significant mode of agency – one that challenges dominant penal narratives, sustains human dignity, and reconfigures power relations in contexts of profound structural constraint.

Bio:

Tobias Brandner is Professor of Theology at the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, CUHK, teaching the history of Global Christianity, mission studies, and ecumenism, and professor by courtesy of the Department of Anthropology. He has been a prison chaplain for more than 30 years, serving in local prisons and visiting prisons overseas. His service among prisoners resulted in several publications, among them the monograph Beyond the Walls of Separation: Christian Faith and  Ministry in Prison (Cascade 2014) and the article “‘The room is small, but the heart is big’ – Religion and community life in prison: a case study from the Philippines,” Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Vol. 21/4, August 2020, 1-20.