Located 'betwixt and between' the hills and the plains, 'tradition' and
'modernity', the peripheries and the mainstream of the modern nation-state, Hayami's study of the Karen in northwestern Thailand provides a window into the ways people adapt their practices and values in the face of encroaching social and economic forces. Re-examining the historical records while providing a detailed ethnographic account of customary rituals and practices, Hayami overturns previous interpretations of religious adaptation which suggested that the uptake of Christianity and Buddhism in the region has been 'superficially' concerned with embodied practices at the expense of doctrinal conformity.