The New Ethnography and the Study of Religion

Saliba, John A.

doi:10.2307/1384376

Cited by 12 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Most would view a Sikh community or gurdwara ethnography as one of a racialized religious community, as I myself also originally classified it during the time of study. However, the category of religion-generally presumed to be a static category of inquiry-has been thoroughly critiqued by many scholars, particularly the use of religion as an analytically identifiable, discursive framework that exists separately from notions of power, temporality, and location (Asad, 1993;Carrasco Miró, 2020;Geertz, 1966;Saliba, 1974). Guhin's (2014) theorizing on religion as site rather than category provides a useful starting point to consider the ways ethnographers can reinterpret religion as a social location through which theories of social life can be both generated and tested.…”

Section: Refiguring Ethnographic Epistemologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Im/material and intimate relations: Considering ethnographic methodologies for already-surveilled communities

Kaur

2023

Ethnography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In this autoethnography of ethnographic training and methodologies, I reflect upon unaddressed tensions in a Los Angeles County gurdwara ethnography, pursued as an intellectualized response to the 2012 Oak Creek gurdwara shooting. I theorize the gurdwara (and other similarly sociopolitically located spaces) as “already-surveilled,” where intimacy in a US white supremacist context must also be seen as a forced relation with the state surveillance apparatus. Analyzing field notes from the classroom and gurdwara, I offer three possible approaches to ethnographic inquiry: participant observation, bearing witness, and embodied conviction. I argue that, without an embodied approach, ethnographic approaches fail to incorporate analyses of power and precarity (the material), particularly for communities of belief (the immaterial). Finally, I offer a model for generating theoretical and methodological frameworks from embodied practices of belief or conviction—in this case, Sikh praxes of relation, knowing, and belief that are witnessed across various gurdwaras.

show abstract

Section: Refiguring Ethnographic Epistemologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Im/material and intimate relations: Considering ethnographic methodologies for already-surveilled communities

Kaur

2023

Ethnography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…As Geertz (1966) has noted, the symbolic universe of the actors is to be the point of departure, not the final destination. John Saliba (1974) failed to stress this point in his article promoting the use of the new ethnography in the study of religion. He correctly perceived that greater objectivity and accuracy are possible through the new ethnography's immersion in and respect for the native, or emic point of view.…”

Section: Resolution Of the Mystique Of The Extremementioning

confidence: 99%

Empiricism, Symbolic Realism, and the Mystique of the Extreme*

Karcher¹,

Balswick²,

Robinson³

1980

Sociological Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The empiricist/symbolic realist debate in the sociology of religion, as well as the broader objectivist/subjectivist controversy in social science, suffers from the mystique of the extreme. Emphasis has been placed on the two approaches as opposing alternatives, an either-or choice. This paper suggests that the mystique of the extreme prohibits perception of the necessary, dialectical complementarity of the two approaches. Neither alone can succeed in understanding religion scientifically. Research efforts must bring together the two perspectives by using what social anthropologists refer to as the emic and etic levels of analysis.

show abstract

“…Psychological studies of other religions should include both ethnographic (Saliba, 1974) and comparative studies. Ethnography, an idiographic approach, studies the functioning of a religious symbol or behavior within the structure of its own religion.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychology of religion: A call for a broader paradigm.

McFarland¹

1984

American Psychologist

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The New Ethnography and the Study of Religion

Cited by 12 publications

References 37 publications

Im/material and intimate relations: Considering ethnographic methodologies for already-surveilled communities

Im/material and intimate relations: Considering ethnographic methodologies for already-surveilled communities

Empiricism, Symbolic Realism, and the Mystique of the Extreme*

Psychology of religion: A call for a broader paradigm.

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About