MAGIC WITH A MESSAGE: The Poetics of Christian Conjuring

This essay is about a group of neo-Pentecostal evangelists who decided to represent their church in the New York Dance Parade, which they regarded as an opportunity to promote worship as the true purpose of art and engage in spiritual warfare. Their participation was predicated on a distinction between "performance" and "ministry," privileging the latter. I argue that upholding this distinction in the immersive context of a secular festival required a process of intensive ritualization, involving physical and spiritual preparations and symbolic boundary maintenance. I further argue that anthropological perspectives on such instances of public religion should seek to account for how ritual forms produce and are shaped by the effects of what I call proximation, a condition of "closeness" between categories of activity otherwise regarded as separate and autonomous (e.g., religion and the arts). The concept is a means to explore how religious ministries are influenced by ostensibly external factors and the need to manage them, and by the various opportunities, tensions, and moral associations that arise when ritual strategies evoke comparisons with secular genres and domains. The proximations of religion highlight the ethnographic significance of ideal-typical categories and spheres, including their potential to intersect, which is a byproduct of how they have been differentiated. [Christianity, ritual, performance, evangelicalism, secularism] RESUMEN Este ensayo es acerca de un grupo de evangelistas neopentecostales que decidieron representar su iglesia en el Desfile de Danza de Nueva York, el cual vieron como una oportunidad para promover la alabanza como el verdadero propósito del arte e involucrarse en la guerra espiritual. Su participación fue predicada sobre la distinción entre "representación" y "ministerio", privilegiando elúltimo. Argumento que sosteniendo esta distinción en el contexto de inmersión en un festival secular requirió un proceso de ritualización intensivo, involucrando preparaciones físicas y espirituales y mantenimiento de un límite simbólico. Argumento además que las perspectivas antropológicas en tales casos de religión pública deben buscar explicar cómo las formas rituales producen y son moldeadas por los efectos de lo que yo llamo proximación, una condición de "proximidad" entre categorías de actividad de otra manera consideradas como separadas y autónomas (p.ej., la religión y las artes). El concepto es un medio para explorar cómo los ministerios religiosos son influenciados por factores ostensiblemente externos y la necesidad de manejarlos, y por las diversas oportunidades, tensiones, y asociaciones morales que surgen cuando las estrategias rituales evocan comparaciones con géneros y dominios seculares. Las condiciones de "proximidad" de la religión destacan el significado etnográfico de las categorías y esferas típicas-ideales, incluyendo su potencial de intersectar, lo cual es un subproducto de cómo se han diferenciado. [Cristiandad, ritual, representación, evangelicalismo, secularis...

Section: Intersections and Entanglementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proximations of Public Religion: Worship, Spiritual Warfare, and the Ritualization of Christian Dance

Elisha

2017

“…If the precarious world is speaking to us in heightened ethical registers, anthropologists were further interested in its proliferating Christian charismatic religious forms. Although a number of articles focus on a variety of religious practices ranging from Islamic (Adely ; Clarke ; Henig ; Mittermaier ) to indigenized Catholic (Tassi ), Siberian Buddhist (Bernstein ; BuckQuijada 2012), and popular Hindu (Singh ), the biggest cluster focuses on evangelical Christianity both far (Chua ; Eriksen ) and near (in the United States and England; see Brahinsky ; Engelke ; Jones ; Luhrman ; McGovern ). Two articles in particular speak to some of the themes raised in this review.…”

Section: Religious Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

On Precariousness and the Ethical Imagination: The Year 2012 in Sociocultural Anthropology

Muehlebach¹

2013

141

I dedicate this essay to anthropologists' heightened attunement to precarity but also to what Michel-Rolph Trouillot, who passed away last year, called our "moral optimism." As I show, much of our work is written from within and against precarity while at the same time being committed to this specifically anthropological ethic.This ethic permeates many of the articles surveyed here and can be found in all of the sections into which they are grouped: On Capital and How We Can Know It; Ethical Encounters; Politics and Protest; Religious Ethics; andAnatomies of Relatedness. I ask what the task of ethnography is now that "things are falling apart, again." This question is crucial because precarity has inserted itself into the very heart of anthropology itself. [precarity, moral imagination, year in review, 2012, sociocultural anthropology] RESUMEN Dedicoéste ensayo a la intensificada sensibilización de los antropólogos a la precariedad pero también a lo que Michel-Rolph Trouillot, quien falleció el año pasado, llamó nuestro "optimismo moral." Como lo demuestro, mucho de nuestro trabajo es escrito desde dentro y en contra de la precariedad mientras al mismo tiempo estando comprometido con estaética específicamente antropológica. Estaética permea muchos de los artículos identificados aquí y puede ser encontrada en todas las secciones en las que ellos están agrupados: Sobre capital y cómo podemos conocerlo; Encuentroséticos; Política y protesta;Ética religiosa; y Anatomías de la relacionalidad. Cuestiono cuál es la tarea de la etnografía ahora que "las cosas están desmoronándose, de nuevo." Esta pregunta es crucial desde que la precariedad se ha insertado ella misma en el corazón mismo de la antropología. [precariedad, imaginación moral, año de revisión, 2012, antropología socio-cultural]

“…Such research explores how play and performance frames are employed to shape the social production of meaning. For example, Graham Jones () analyzes how evangelical magicians, in contrast to other magicians, actively draw attention to the performance framing of magic, saying some variant of “that's just a trick.” Such reflexive attention to the performance frame allows these artists to put on a show and simultaneously juxtapose what they see as the deceit of magic with the veracity of the gospel. Kathe Managan () discusses how Guadeloupean linguistic stereotypes are circulated through comedy sketches.…”

Section: Expansions and Refinementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Linguistic Anthropology in 2012: Language Matter(s)

Black¹

2013

In this article, I discuss the accomplishments of scholars of language and culture in 2012 and the questions raised by those accomplishments. I review matters of language—expansions and refinements of existing research topics, including linguistic relativity, language socialization, sociolinguistic variation, and language ideologies. I then consider a trend of research on topics of embodiment, materiality, and the senses, discussing the matter (in the physics sense) of language. I then use the term engagement to comment on developments in research on language endangerment, language circulation and shift, language and health, language and education, and language and social justice. This is rooted in the notion that language makes a difference (or matters) in cultural practice. I conclude with a brief discussion of the ontology of language, the epistemology of linguistic anthropology, and the roles of scholars of language and culture in anthropology as a whole.