Biography

Manduhai Buyandelger is an anthropologist of religion, gender, and politics, with regional expertise in Mongolia. Her early work centered on cultural memory and religious practices among ethnic Buryats. She investigated the proliferation of shamanic practices during the first decade of postsocialism, examining how these activities contested both Soviet and Enlightenment-based values of secularism and rationality. Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Gender, and Memory in Contemporary Mongolia (University of Chicago Press, 2013) won a 2014 Francis L.K. Hsu book prize from the Society of East Asian Anthropology and was shortlisted as one of the top five social science books on Asia by the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) in 2015. Her second book, A Thousand Steps to the Parliament: Constructing Electable Women in Mongolia (University of Chicago Press, 2022), turns to a wider national Mongolian stage, looking at electoral politics, with the particular aim of documenting and analyzing the fortunes and subjectivities of women who are running for parliamentary office. It won 2022 Mongolian Anthropology Association Best Book Prize, and Mongolian Writers Association 2023 Golden Quill Pen award for the best book in a category that addresses human rights issues.

For her forthcoming projects, Manduhai Buyandelger is turning attention to the world of human-nonhuman relations. Joining recent work on multispecies ethnography, Buyandelger aims to examine relations between humans and domesticated animals, such cats and dogs and what these relations might tell us about the politics of care and neglect as well as infrastructures of urban settings in Mongolia and in the US. By looking at immersive technologies such as the VR, she bridges the study of spiritual and technological, and experiential and speculative by examining virtual and other realities. She is also developing an Anthro-Engineering project with MIT Nuclear Engineering to explore alternative heating systems in Mongolia.

Manduhai Buyandelger’s essays appeared in American Ethnologist, Journal of Royal Anthropological Association, Inner Asia, and Annual Review of Anthropology.

Research

My research examines how people rebuild their lives, selves, and social worlds in the wake of dramatic political transformation. Most of my work has been in Mongolia, where the collapse of state socialism in 1990 and the subsequent shift to democracy and neoliberal capitalism opened new economic opportunities while also challenging citizens’ sensibilities about what constitutes a viable and meaningful existence. My first book explores how a nomadic ethnic group, in its attempt to survive life-threatening hardships in the aftermath of state collapse, has been reconstituting its previously suppressed religious practices. My second book examines the reconstruction of the new neoliberal state through parliamentary elections and their attendant political campaigns, taking a close eye to how women have struggled to gain political office. In both projects, I trace shifts in the social roles and subjective experiences of women and men under postsocialism, especially examining how people create new senses of self and value. I intervene in anthropological discussions on religion, state, subjectivities, and gender from a post-socialist perspective.

In my forthcoming research I bridge the study of spiritual and technological, and experiential and speculative by examining virtual and other realities.

Selected Publications

Books

A Thousand Steps to the Parliament: Constructing Electable Women in Mongolia (University of Chicago Press, 2022)

Tragic Spirits: Shamanism, Gender, and Memory in Contemporary Mongolia (University of Chicago Press, 2013)

Articles

Teaching

21A.01
How Culture Works

Introduces diverse meanings and uses of the concept of culture with historical and contemporary examples from scholarship and popular media around the globe. Includes first-hand observations, synthesized histories and ethnographies, quantitative representations, and visual and fictionalized accounts of human experiences. Students conduct empirical research on cultural differences through the systematic observation of human interaction, employ methods of interpretative analysis, and practice convincing others of the accuracy of their findings.

21A.104
Memory, Culture, and Forgetting

Introduces scholarly debates about the sociocultural practices through which individuals and societies create, sustain, recall, and erase memories. Emphasis is given to the history of knowledge, construction of memory, the role of authorities in shaping memory, and how societies decide on whose versions of memory are more "truthful" and "real." Other topics include how memory works in the human brain, memory and trauma, amnesia, memory practices in the sciences, false memory, sites of memory, and the commodification of memory. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.

21A.140J/21F.047J
Cultures of East Asia

Explores diverse cultures, everyday experiences, and political economies in East Asian countries, such as China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, with additional examples from the surrounding regions. Examines the different ways people in these regions experience and understand globalization, as well as the changing structures of kinship and family, work and organizational culture, media, consumption, and the role of government. Readings cover ethnographic studies of the world's largest seafood market in Tokyo, the effect of the Asian financial crisis on South Korea, the role of science in formulating China's one child policy and its economic and social implications, and the state and ethnic diversity in Singapore.

21A.141J / WGS.274J
Images of Asian Women: Dragon Ladies and Lotus Blossoms

Explores some of the forces and mechanisms through which stereotypes are built and perpetuated. In particular, examines stereotypes associated with Asian women in colonial, nationalist, state-authoritarian, and global/diasporic narratives about gender and power. Students read ethnography, fiction, and history, and view films to examine the politics and circumstances that create and perpetuate the representation of Asian women as dragon ladies, lotus blossoms, despotic tyrants, desexualized servants, and docile subordinates. Students are introduced to debates about Orientalism, gender, and power.

21A.157
The Meaning of Life

Examines how a variety of cultural traditions propose answers to the question of how to live a meaningful life. Considers the meaning of life, not as a philosophical abstraction, but as a question that individuals grapple with in their daily lives, facing difficult decisions between meeting and defying cultural expectations. Provides tools for thinking about moral decisions as social and historical practices, and permits students to compare and contextualize the ways people in different times and places approach fundamental ethical concerns.

21A.529
Virtual and Other Realities

Explores virtual worlds created in cyberspace, non-internet ritual spaces, science laboratories, tech companies, and artistic performances from an anthropological perspective. Students acquire analytical tools for thinking about immersive experiences of being someone else, and the socio-economic, political, and technological contexts behind creating specific types of parallel worlds. Examines and contextualizes the ways in which scientists, designers, shamans, ritual specialists, and corporations imagine, respond to, and steer people's desires and needs. Considers debates on the future of imagination, sensory experiences, and creativity in technology. Limited to 20. This class is designed as a seminar class for graduate and advanced undergraduate students.

21A.S01
Anthro-Engineering Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale

Explores and experiments with pathways of decarbonization at the million-person scale through an interdisciplinary “anthro-engineering” approach.  By putting people first, we examine how user-centric design, holistic ally and stakeholder inclusion, responding to cultural and political constraints on clean energy issues, and working in and with diverse groups on open-ended problems can create impactful and equitable changes in energy systems.  Students engage with anthropological approaches to energy, development, sustainability, and climate-related issues while simultaneously exploring the possibilities for practical, real-world intervention into an energy landscape dominated by fossil fuels.

Awards

News

3 Questions: Bridging anthropology and engineering for clean energy in Mongolia

Leda Zimmerman | School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences | MIT News

October 2, 2024

In 2021, Michael Short, an associate professor of nuclear science and engineering, approached professor of anthropology Manduhai Buyandelger with an unusual pitch: collaborating on a project to prototype a molten salt heat bank in Mongolia, Buyandelger’s country of origin and place of her scholarship. It was also an invitation to forge a novel partnership between two disciplines that rarely overlap. Developed in collaboration with the National University of Mongolia (NUM), the device was built to provide heat for people in colder climates, and in places where clean energy is a challenge. 

Buyandelger and Short teamed up to launch Anthro-Engineering Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale, an initiative intended to advance the heat bank idea in Mongolia, and ultimately demonstrate its potential as a scalable clean heat source in comparably challenging sites around the world. This project received funding from the inaugural MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium Seed Awards program. In order to fund various components of the project, especially student involvement and additional staff, the project also received support from the MIT Global Seed Fund, New Engineering Education Transformation (NEET), Experiential Learning Office, Vice Provost for International Activities, and d’Arbeloff Fund for Excellence in Education.

Congratulations to Manduhai Buyandelger on winning 2022 Onon Prize from MIASU, University of Cambridge

October 25, 2023

Professor Manduhai Buyangelger was presented the 2022 Onon prize at the October 2nd, 2023 Onon Lecture at Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit of University of Cambridge, UK.

 

Powering the future in Mongolia

Jiyoo Jye, School of Engineering | MIT News

June 12, 2023

Mongolia, often hailed with the celestial moniker of “The Land of the Eternal Blue Sky,” paradoxically succumbs to a veil of pollution and energy struggles during the winter months, obscuring the true shade of the cherished vista.

MIT students from classes 22.S094 (Climate and Sustainability Systems: Decarbonizing Ulaanbaatar at Scale) and 21A.S01 (Anthro-Engineering: Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale) visited Mongolia to conduct on-site surveys, diving into the diverse tapestry of local life as they gleaned insight from various stakeholder groups.

Anthro-Engineering in Ulaanbaatar: MIT NEET Article | Powering the Future

Story by Jiyoo Jye, Head of Communications | NEET, MIT

May 22, 2023

21A.S01 Anthro-Engineering: Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale, co-taught by Professors Manduhai Buyandelger of MIT Anthropology and Michael Short of MIT Nuclear Science and Engineering (and faculty lead of MIT’s NEET Climate & Sustainability Systems thread) catalyzed MIT students and educators to journey to the Mongolian capital city, Ulaanbataar, over IAP 2023.

 

Prof. Buyandelger's framing of Ulaanbataar's power and pollution problem through an anthropological lens proved instrumental in deepening students' understanding of the intricate dynamics at play. She asks, "The prototype works in the lab, but does it work in real life once you factor in the challenges in the larger structures of delivery, production, and implementation in Mongolia?"

Manduhai Buyandelger among inaugural MCSC Seed Award Recipients

Molly Chase | Climate and Sustainability Consortium | MIT News

May 23, 2022

The MIT Climate and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) has awarded 20 projects a total of $5 million over two years in its first-ever 2022 MCSC Seed Awards program. The winning projects are led by principal investigators across all five of MIT’s schools.

The goal of the MCSC seed awards is to engage MIT researchers and link the economy-wide work of the consortium to ongoing and emerging climate and sustainability efforts across campus. The program offers further opportunity to build networks among the awarded projects to deepen the impact of each and ensure the total is greater than the sum of its parts.

Social dimensions and adaptation

• Anthro-Engineering Decarbonization at the Million-Person Scale, Manduhai Buyandelger, professor in the Anthropology Program; Michael Short, Class of ’42 Associate Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering

 

Keeping humanity central to solving climate change

Kelley Travers | MIT Energy Initiative Publication Date: April 22, 2021 | Photo: Abbie Trayler-Smith/Panos Pictures

April 26, 2021

MIT scholars are helping to solve the economic, cultural, and political dimensions of the world’s energy and climate challenges.

 

Case studies show climate variation linked to rise and fall of medieval nomadic empires

Alice McBride | EAPS News | Photo Credit: Bernd Thaller

November 30, 2020

Coverage of the virtual lecture "Climate, History, and Nomadic Empires: Case Studies and Questions of Method," co-sponsored by MIT Anthropology, History. and EAPS

Guest Lecturer: Nicola Di Cosmo, featuring Anthropology Program Head Heather Paxson, an introduction by MIT History's Tristan Brown, and commentary from co-discussants David McGee and Manduhai Buyandelger.

 

Links

The Oral History of Twentieth Century Mongolia website

The surprising story of Mongolian shamanism

Anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger wins the 2013 Levitan Prize in the Humanities

Steppe by steppe

Electionization and Postsocialist Subjectivity (video)