Anthropological proselytism: Reflexive questions for a Hare Krishna ethnography

Haddon, Malcolm

doi:10.1111/taja.12050

Cited by 14 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…As Pocock (: 1) puts it: ‘Social anthropology is concerned with the whole of life, and not just something you do until six o'clock. The study of social anthropology … is a way of looking at the world, and in that sense it is a way of living.’ It seems to me that this conception of anthropology as a ‘way of life’ continually informed by alterity has much in common with the idea expressed by Haddon () that ethnographic participation is not restricted to fieldwork encounters, but also fundamentally characterises the work of ethnographic representation or ‘translation’.…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

Durkheim, Freud and I in Aboriginal Australia, or should Anthropology contain theology?

Morton

2013

Australian J of Anthropology

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If it is true that ‘all of social theory is a breakdown product of a decaying theology’ (Robbins on Milbank), then social theory might be said to be both discontinuous and continuous with the theology. In this article I reflect on how anthropology distances itself from religion, yet retains broadly theological concerns. Taking my cue from Christopher Herbert's observation in Culture and Anomie that anthropological ideas about culture have evident, if difficultly acknowledged, religious origins, I reflexively consider this issue in relation to my own writing and anthropological encounters I have experienced with Indigenous informants and students. I discuss two instances of my secular‐rationalist embarrassment in the presence of divine revelation and relate these to my anthropological modelling of Aboriginal religion, suggesting reasons for the problematic disjunction between my ability to analyse this religion and my inability to properly experience it (or something like it). I also make a case for the legitimacy of Durkheim's search for ‘the elementary forms of the religious life’ in order to clarify what is essential (‘sacred’) about all morality, rejecting Milbank's characterisation of it as ‘perverse theology’. There is, I suggest, nothing intrinsically ‘perverse’ about this search, so long as we follow Robbins' suggestion and relativise the Christian mythos in order to look to a more broadly‐based anthropological conception of what it means to live gracefully in the presence of some ‘holy spirit’.

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mentioning

confidence: 81%

Durkheim, Freud and I in Aboriginal Australia, or should Anthropology contain theology?

Morton

2013

Australian J of Anthropology

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“…The contributors to this special issue approach this endeavour in a number of ways. Anthropology, as Malcolm Haddon () and John Morton () demonstrate, when conceived as an unconscious form of religious performance, marks a transformative instance where the secular‐rationalist boundaries between theology and anthropology coalesce and become indistinguishable. Throwing anthropological epistemologies into relief against pagan, Islamic and Christian theologies, Rachel Morgain (), Gerhard Hoffstaedter () and Philip Fountain () illuminate productive fissures and interrogate the borders separating the secular and the religious.…”

Section: Encounters and Engagementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropological theologies: Engagements and encounters

Fountain

Lau

2013

Australian J of Anthropology

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In a ground-breaking article Joel Robbins analysed what he characterises as the 'awkward' relationship between anthropology and theology and invited greater anthropological engagement with its disciplinary cousin. This Special Issue responds to this provocation by using Robbins' argument as a bouncing board for wide-ranging forays into a common set of concerns. In investigating anthropological theologies the collection critically attends to the kinds of engagements and encounters that already take place and also lays out future agendas for further interactions. We call for an anthropology that is open to provisional, dialogic and potentially transformative interactions across diverse theologies and suggest that such a move will help shed light on the possibilities of re-modelling the practice of anthropology. AN AWKWARD RELATIONSHIPIn a ground-breaking article Robbins (2006) invites consideration of 'what is or should be the relationship between anthropology and theology?' The fact that the question, as Robbins notes, has hardly ever been asked by anthropologists says something that cuts to the core of the discipline. Indeed, while questions of our location vis-a-vis 'neighbouring' disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies have long haunted anthropology, theology has hardly ever been considered part of our neighbourhood. Direct and explicit discussion of theology has rarely been considered an urgent or necessary task. This has been the case even when theological theories clearly intersect with central anthropological domains of enquiry. In asking for descriptive and normative enquiries into this relationship, Robbins disturbs the status quo and invites critical examination of our conspicuous and assiduous avoidance of this disciplinary cousin.But more than being simply a matter of neglect, the relationship between theology and anthropology (at least from the anthropologists' side) is characterised by deep unease. Probing this discomfort, Robbins suggests that anthropologists have had a thoroughly 'awkward' relationship with theology. This stems from the fact that theology is a 'committed discipline', whereas anthropology, he argues, is not. Perhaps more

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“…In writing about, and offering an anthropological interpretation of, Orthodox Christian symbols, my ethnography sits as an anthropological mystagogy. Haddon (2013) answers his question saying that yes, his writing is proselytism, but is so, he says, of necessity, and there are no negative repercussions to that fact. In my case, I would likewise say that aspects of my work can be read as anthropological mystagogy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…15, 16), which he likens to the impressionist painters heightened focus on the mode of brushstrokes that they employed. Haddon-working from Benjamin (1996), Asad (1993), and Harding (2000)-highlights the aspect of this sort of anthropological work as 'cultural translation' (Haddon 2013). It is this sort of anthropological translation work that I see needed in the dialogue between the social sciences and theology, and much work is needed in order to move the disciplinary conversation toward becoming 'self-aware'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theology as an Ethnographic Object: An Anthropology of Eastern Christian Rupture

Carroll¹

2017

Religions

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This paper draws upon over three years' research among Eastern Orthodox (principally Antiochian and Greek) communities in London and Mount Athos, Greece. This research came to engage theology quite heavily as part of the ethnographic facts of the fieldsites. This paper reviews some of the existing ways that theology (as both discipline and practice) relate to ethnographic enquiry, particularly as it has arisen in the dialogue with the Anthropology of Christianity and frames this in light of the historical development of Anthropology and its relationship to theology and Christianity. The paper then advances a methodological argument, in favour of further means of relation, specifically in terms of theology as a cultural artefact. Drawing on local practices of liturgical theology and Eastern Orthodox forms of allegorical interpretation, I argue for the inclusion of theological insight and practice within the social scientific study of religion. Working in an Orthodox setting requires the investigation of liturgical theology and brings to light important aspects of the relationship between temporal and sempiternal domains of action. Particularly as it relates to liturgical theology and the practices of interpretation, ethnographic enquiry into Orthodox theology asks for a reconsideration of social scientific methods of analysis and representation.

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Anthropological proselytism: Reflexive questions for a Hare Krishna ethnography

Cited by 14 publications

References 20 publications

Durkheim, Freud and I in Aboriginal Australia, or should Anthropology contain theology?

Durkheim, Freud and I in Aboriginal Australia, or should Anthropology contain theology?

Anthropological theologies: Engagements and encounters

Theology as an Ethnographic Object: An Anthropology of Eastern Christian Rupture

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