Hiroko Kawanami is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, UK. She has extensive experience of working with the Buddhist community in Myanmar and is author of Buddhism and the Political Process (2016) and co-editor of Religions in the Modern World, 3rd edition (2016).
The Culture of Giving in Myanmar: Buddhist Offerings, Reciprocity and Interdependence is indisputably a key contemporary work on the sensitivities of the social custom of gift-giving and its implications in social and religious contexts ... The book is irrefutably a robust value addition in the broader anthropological and sociological discourse on gift transactions and contributes effectively to the ongoing research in anthropology of Buddhism and Southeast Asian studies. * Reading Religion * [A] culturally detailed and ethnographically informed book ... Kawanami's book opens a fruitful avenue for further analysis of the cultures of giving and the political ramifications of othering in Myanmar and beyond. * Journal of Buddhist Ethics *