Anthropology Of Religion Research Articles

On Religious Change: the Situational Analysis of Symbolic Action

In recent years I have been engaged in research in the social anthropology of religion. In the course of investigating the changing religious beliefs and practices of Jewish immigrants in Israel from rural Tunisia and Morocco I initially sought to conceptualize the phenomena encountered in terms of ‘secularization’. This study is a consequence of the problems that arose.

Careful, You Might Lose Something: On Being Disciplined into the Anthropology of Religion

This paper reflects on the experience of entering into the academic field of the anthropology of religion. Its reflections are prompted by a perceived division in the anthropology of religion between the Other (whose religion is the target of incessant and persistent questions) and the Self (whose religion is a fairly sensitive issue that is decidedly not questioned). The paper explores by what means the two sides of such a double phenomenon are able to coexist, and asks what repressions and exclusions are necessary in order to sustain the deceptively simple anthropological procedure where the Self examines/explains (the religion of) the Other?

Eye-glazing and the anthropology of religion: the positive and negative aspects of experiencing and not understanding an emotional phenomenon in religious studies research

This article will look at the phenomenon of 'eye-glazing' and the impact, both positive and negative, that this unsettling phenomenon, sometimes observed in religious studies research, has had on my own development as an anthropologist working with Evangelical groups. It will examine the experience of being unable to understand and structure a particular 'culture shock' in one's own research, focussing on eye-glazing, and will examine both the positive and negative consequences for the anthropologist from a personal perspective, placing its findings within the broader anthropological discussion. It will also aim to provide detailed descriptive examples of a fascinating phenomenon of which there has been relatively little discussion in the anthropology of religion.

Nurcholish Madjid: Memadukan Kesalehan dan Politik

Ann Kull, Piety and Politics: Nurcholish Madjid and His Interpretation of Islam in Modern Indonesia, Sweden: Lund University, 2005, xiv + 300 pp.This book is based on the dissertation of the author, Ann Kull, at the Department of History and Anthropology of Religion, Lund University, Sweden in November 2005. This book is one of a number of works that provide a thorough analysis of the thinking of one of Indonesia's foremost intellectuals Nurcholish Madjid (d. 2005) on matters concerning piety and politics. Kull's work, it could be said, is a reference work on Nurcholish's teachings.DOI: 10.15408/sdi.v12i2.592

The Sociological Interpretation of Religion

Professor Robertson's book, according to the publisher's comment, 'stands as the first attempt to bring together critically all the major contributions to the sociology and anthropology of religion and to outline systematically the major analytical problems involved in the study of religious phenomena'. Predictably the fullest treatment is given to Weber; but it is Weberian, too, in its comparative method, its scholarly approach, its wide-ranging documentation and its compressed style. This reviewer's feeling is that there is a very good book trying to get out of the present format. Designed as an introduction to the field, in trying to cover a wide range of analysis it shares the characteristic of many textbooks, that those who are familiar with topics will find the summaries neat and well organized, while those who are new to the subject may find it heavy going (particularly those sections which require a sophisticated theological as well as sociological vocabulary). Significantly, however, the author breaks new ground-and one wishes he had spent longer doing so. As it is, the need to be concise leaves a sense of frustration that new ideas were not more fully explicated and typologies ('adumbrated' regularly throughout the book) not fully worked through in relation to empirical material, so that while initially stimulating, their utility in organizing data is not fully apparent. Where Professor Robertson does take time to

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion.

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion.

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion

Religion and Culture: An Introduction to the Anthropology of Religion

On Giving Salt to Buffaloes: Ritual as Communication

In recent work on the anthropology of religion, Wallace (1966: 233) suggests that ritual is without each ritual being a particular sequence of signals which, once announced, allows no uncertainty, no choice, and hence . . . conveys no from sender to receiver. Wallace is apparently using the word information in too narrow sense. Ritual acts are necessarily repetitive but, far from erasing information, this repetition assures people that the basic values and institutions on which their society rests still retain their validity. Such reassurance is conveyed in the symbolism of ritual, and apparently has the effect of reducing anxiety in community. The present essay will analyze particular Indian ritual so as to show that this (like any other calendrical ritual) does indeed communicate very important message: All is going to be well for our community! The process of communication takes many forms in modern India. Some flows to the populace from the mass media of radio, press, film, and poster; other reaches people through the link? ages in different types of personal chains or networks. Some of these net? works are official; they link villagers with panchayat board, with district government officials, and then with the state governments. Others are unofficial, but very deeply entrenched and important in daily life. Their structure and use vary according to whether they link village and town, village and village, or the members of single hamlet. Village-and-town networks operate through the linkage of villagers who spend considerable time in town and have influential or knowledgeable friends there. Inter? village networks may link persons in neighboring villages who co-operate to stage annual festivals, or they may be based on pattern of marriage and visiting relationships. The intravillage networks may also have kinship basis, but there are further types of network within the village which link individuals to certain centers of influence and information?the village headman and council, the educated younger men, the festival committee, and the gossiping groups. These village networks can be defined as the sequences of personal contacts that must be made if anyone is to influence or be influenced by people in any of the loci of power, i.e., those groups of people who control an optimum of locally useful information. 411