Does "Buddhism and the West" have a future? Redrawing maps and problem-spaces

Since its founding as a Consultation in 2008, the AAR's Buddhism and the West Unit has helped establish a subfield at the intersection of Buddhist Studies, American and European Religions, anthropology and history of religions, and critical theory. Yet, existential and analytical questions loom. What work is the category "the West" still doing — and for whom? Should the Unit be re-conceived as "Buddhism Outside Asia," "Buddhism Outside Buddhist Asia," "Global Buddhisms," or something else? Where does it sit, alongside yet distinct from other Units? This roundtable gathers past and present committee members alongside scholars active in the subfield to take stock of where we have been, assess where the field is going, and deliberate about whether our map still corresponds to the territory we wish to study. The conversation aims not only to affirm or generate a name, but to delineate a generative “problem-space,” as conceived of by David Scott.