ANTH 363 Lecture Notes PDF

ANTH 363 Lecture Notes Anthropology of Religion | Sept. 6-13 Readings: -​ Morris; Introduction -​ Metcalf (recommended) 👍👍 -​ Eller (recommended) -​ Geertz (recommended) -​ Kapchan (recommended) Two questions: -​ What is anthropology? -​ What is...

ANTH 363 Lecture Notes Anthropology of Religion | Sept. 6-13 Readings: -​ Morris; Introduction -​ Metcalf (recommended) 👍👍 -​ Eller (recommended) -​ Geertz (recommended) -​ Kapchan (recommended) Two questions: -​ What is anthropology? -​ What is religion? Anthropology I What is anthropology? -​ Many definitions depending on different schools of thought -​ Definition for this class: the study of how people understand themselves, others, and the world around them and how they communicate that understanding -​ Socio-cultural -​ The human experience -​ Cross-generational -​ Exchange -​ Kinship -​ Belief systems -​ Anthropology views society as a complex system -​ Many parts interacting with each other -​ Chaos theory: everything sort of/eventually circles back to each other Ethnography -​ The way we’re able to interact with/live in this complex system -​ Anthropology is ethnography -​ Ethnography: the scientific description of social action and process collected through participant observation -​ We’re not just describing faces/entities, we’re describing people; capturing experiences Participant Observation -​ Be a conduit for peoples’ voices to be heard -​ Theories and etc. come from fieldwork and experiences -​ Argonauts of the Western Pacific; Bronislaw Malinowski (1922) -​ “Intimate details of family life” -​ It’s not about the grand ceremonies/festivals/feasts, it’s about the mundane, day-to-day life events -​ Body & Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer; Loic Wacquant -​ “I must grasp boxing through its least known and least spectacular” -​ “The drab, the ordinary, the mundane” -​ Demonstrates what it’s like to be in a place segregated from the rest, with little opportunities -​ Unholy Catholic Ireland: Religious Hypocrisy, Secular Morality, and Irish Irreligion; Hugh Turpin -​ “What happens to a Catholic country that loses its faith?”  -​ Communicating social structures and how they change over time -​ Finding true communication and meaning Religion I What is religion? -​ An idea academia has wrestled with for decades -​ A church and pastor/pope? A mosque? A specially performed funeral service? Jedi-ism? -​ Does one count as a religion more than another? -​ Traditional Latin mass? A bible study group? -​ Is one more religious than another? -​ Is there a sliding scale of religion? -​ Is there a difference in religiosity? -​ We’re not creating hierarchies of religion based on what’s “better” or “worse”; what’s more “sophisticated” or “primitive”; we’re looking at them the same way -​ “Religion is a social institution, a socio-cultural system… ill understood when simply viewed as an ideology or a belief system.” (Morris 2006) -​ Something that is communicating the structures of a group and teaching people how to perceive the information they get -​ Something that is lived; extremely important to people -​ “By which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life” (Yinger 1970) -​ Utilizing to work through problems and live through life -​ Not just academic thought; these are people The Anthropology of Religion I -​ How does religion mesh with the discipline of anthropology? -​ The “least spectacular the drab” (Wacquant, 2004) and the “usually trivial, sometimes dramatic, but always significant” (Malinowski 2014) -​ Asking how the trivial aspects of religion affect the day-to-day aspects -​ How does the belief system transform into social action and social process? -​ “Theologians characteristically work in libraries. Their primary interest is in texts… anthropologists are interested in religion as lived not mentalized” (Metcalf 2022) -​ We’re able to not focus on the truth of religious beliefs, but on how these beliefs shape how someone lives their life -​ How do we engage with an idea/concept as if it were real? -​ “The anthropology of religion is the scientific investigation of the diversity of human religion” (Eller 2013) Attributes -​ Ritual practices -​ Something that needs to be done over and over again -​ Highly prescribed -​ What you eat/don’t eat, people you do/don’t associate with, Catholic mass, praying, etc. -​ Repeated in order to become/prevent/manifest something, etc. -​ Daily/weekly/repetitive practices, or a one-time thing -​ An ethical code and body of doctrine -​ Things that are believed/practiced/said about how the world works -​ How does religion translate into what you want to be/become? -​ Beliefs -​ Less formalized than a body of doctrine -​ The reasoning behind the things you feel you need to do/not do  -​ Vastly different even within one singular religion based on location, culture, etc. -​ Fluidity; room for the context of your environment/culture to adjust them -​ Scripture/holy text -​ Liberal; some religions don’t have a standardized holy text (even world religions) -​ Anything written down that people can defer to -​ Oral tradition -​ Telling scripture through different stories/traditions -​ Patterns of social relations, i.e. a church or place of congregation -​ Somewhere to connect and have regular meetings -​ Hierarchy of ritual specialists -​ People who are specializing in whatever the religious practices are -​ People to act on your behalf -​ Tendency to create dichotomy between the sacred and the profane -​ Things that are supernatural/outside the realm of mortality and things that aren’t -​ Why is something sacred? -​ An ethos that gives scope for emotional or mystical experience -​ Some rationale for what you’re feeling Jediism -​ Where does Jediism fall in the spectrum of religion? -​ International Church of Jediism/Temple of the Jedi Order -​ Religion based on the Force -​ Don’t worship George Lucas/franchise/movie -​ “Real-life followers of Jediism treat the fiction of Star Wars as a blueprint for a religious or philosophical belief system, creating doctrinal creeds and training programs which build upon Taoism and Buddhism” -​ Has a lot of attributes of religion: (online) places of congregation, oral tradition, beliefs, scripture, sermons, 16 teachings -​ Tax exemptions in the US -​ What differentiates a Star Wars fan from someone who genuinely believes they’re a Jedi? -​ Studying Jediism opens up the concept of religion The Anthropology of Religion II -​ “People cannot be reduced to texts anymore than they can be reduced to objects” (Jackson 1989) -​ People aren’t just the texts they believe in -​ “Religions are more than just a matter of thinking” (Metcalf 2022) -​ More than just a belief system -​ “The answer to that question is that religions are more than a matter of thinking. They are also a matter of doing, and it is ritual that typically provides the point of entry for anthropologists… the crucial point is that anthropologists are interested in religion as lived not mentalized.” (Metcalf 2022) -​ Religion is something that you do/lived -​ Is there a difference in what people say they do and what they really do? -​ Why is this translating into specific social action? -​ “Hybrid character” (Bloche 1988) -​ Written down/oral/scripture and action -​ Religion is not just lines in a book; God is not just three letters in a book -​ Actual tangible reality -​ Made manifest through the lived aspects of it -​ How the lines of a book materialize into real life; how God becomes a real entity to people  -​ How does something “fictitious”/intangible become tangible reality/real through our actions? Religion II -​ “A propitiation of conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and human life” (Frazer 1958) -​ “The feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men… in relation to whatever they may consider divine” (William 1958) -​ There’s things that are not human; energy, spirits, anything outside of humanity -​ “It consists of two parts: the first: … specific feeling and second certain acts, customs, beliefs, and conceptions associated with this feeling. The belief most inextricably connected with the specific feeling is a belief in spirits outside of man, conceived as more powerful than man and as controlling all those elements in life upon which he lay most stress” (Radin 1857) -​ “A set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformation, of state in man and nature” (Wallace 1966) -​ Asking them to do something for us; petitioning; sacrificing on an altar; praying -​ While there is a difference between sacred and profane, a lot of religion is to allow us to transcend that difference and be more -​ “A metasystem that solves problems of meaning… generated in the large part (but not entirely) by the social order, grounding that order within a theoretically ultimate reality within which those problems will “make sense”” (Ortner 1978) -​ Culture taken to the extreme though the inclusion of the nonhuman -​ We’re making things sacred by including these things from outside our realm -​ Allows us as anthropologists to include religions that other religious scholars might not be interested in, as well as expand the context of other religions -​ “Rather, that the things with the Gentiles sacrifice they sacrifice to demons and not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons” (1 Cor 10:20) The Anthropology of Religion III -​ We’re not trying to find truth, we’re trying to understand religion as part of a social institution -​ A universal commonality that is universally different -​ Institution that is present everywhere, yet different around the world -​ Comparing in the sense of understanding why there’s difference and where there are similarities -​ Frameworks of theory -​ Crucial act of the discipline Intellectualist Approach -​ Religion is a way to explain the events of the world -​ System used for creating reason in chaos; making sense of the things that don’t make sense -​ Understand the unexplainable -​ Functionalist; looking for what function religion serves -​ “Intended for the explanation, prediction, and control of space-time events” (Horton 1971) -​ Explain and ultimately understand how to manipulate our reality -​ E.g. rain dance, farmer praying for rain -​ Creating a system in which we can attempt to manipulate the unexplainable Emotionalist Approach -​ Emphasis on religion as part of an emotional response to ease stress/worries/anxieties -​ A way to cope with the chaos -​ Something we do in order to help us alleviate the stress and anxieties of life  -​ How can I cope with/get through the unexplainable? -​ Dance, prayer, deities and higher powers will help you get through things -​ “By which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life” (Yinger 1970) -​ “A metasystem that solves the problems of meaning… generated in the large part (but not entirely) Structuralist Approach -​ Placing meaning on actions; moving deeper than the surface level -​ Levi-Strauss and communication -​ Communication aspect of ritual is important -​ The meaning it’s communicating to people -​ Durkheim and the parameters of our existence -​ The okays and not okays of society; the norms -​ Looking at religion as the “extreme” version of communicating norms -​ Saussure and negative values (binary opposition) -​ Understanding of one thing is through its opposite -​ Sacred and profane -​ Religion isn’t just about the divine, it’s just as much about the opposite -​ How does religion introduce binaries? -​ How opposites are communicated through meaning -​ Culture and religious structure as a means of communication -​ Social and cultural structures obligatory pathways -​ Downplays human agency; divorces the idea of free will, “you have to live a certain way” -​ There can be a general guideline for how we should want to live, but these parameters can vary and we can choose which ones we adhere to based on who we want to become -​ What does this [ritual] tell people? Interpretive/Symbolic Approach -​ Key words: semantic, symbolic, semiotic, or hermeneutic -​ What kind of meaning is being attached to certain things; semantics relating to/arising from different meanings -​ How the meaning of one things affects the meaning of another -​ Explaining things -​ Digging out the nuanced details -​ Religion as a symbolic system -​ Clifford Geertz, Mary Douglas, Marshall Sahlins, John Beattie, Victor Turner, Stanley Tambiah -​ Only part of the answer; religion isn’t just beliefs and ideology because people act on these things -​ Puts a lot of emphasis on rituals being symbols; nuanced distinction between means of communication and being symbols of other things -​ What does this [ritual] symbolize? Cognitive Approach -​ Combination of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology -​ Capturing the human experience -​ Religion as ‘counter intuitive’ (Morris 2006) but that appear to be natural or intuitive -​ We think of these religious structures as natural (why?) -​ Coming to terms with this inconsistency in the way we look at religion -​ Emphasis on the brain as the driving mechanism of culture; the brain already has cognitive measures scripted out as culture -​ Cathartic/survival response to the chaos of the world -​ Adapt and survive  -​ Looks at religion as a cognitive mechanism that the brain creates -​ Pre-scripted into our brains Phenomenological Approach -​ Epoch: Suspension of prior judgment and the ‘bracketing’ (Morris 2006) of commonsense understandings -​ Cultural relativism and awareness of ethnocentrism -​ You have to suspend your own ideas of common sense and understanding of the world to understand the experience itself -​ Eidetic intuition: discovering the intuitive meaning -​ “Go along for the ride”; experience it like a believer -​ Thick descriptions and ethnography -​ There is deeper meaning for actions that aren’t apparent on the surface; trying to understand that difference -​ Individual experiences and how each person experiences different things -​ Religion and social institutions are intuitive -​ Trying to understand it through others’ understanding instead of our own Sociological Approaches -​ Religion is a social phenomena that needs to be understood within its socio-historical context -​ ‘A science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order thereby to arrive at a causal explanation of its causes and effect’ (Weber 1947) -​ Religion as highly influential in social life and cultural meaning -​ Legitimizing class hierarchy -​ Maintaining specific patterns of life -​ Selection of our exchange systems -​ Moral and ethical structures -​ Multiple parts that make up an entire whole, each being influenced by one another -​ ‘Religion is thus only one perspective in terms of which humans construe the world, and it is certainly not the most basic’ (Morris 2006) Shamanism | Sept. 16-20 Readings: -​ Morris; chapter 1: Shamanism -​ Turner (recommended) 👍 -​ Mullins (recommended) Shamanism -​ One topic of religion that has no clear answer about if it’s a religion or an aspect of religion -​ Shamanism used to be frowned upon in anthropology bc they weren’t sure what it was -​ Anything that didn’t quite fit into a clear conception of deity became “shamanistic”; things outside our norm -​ Geertz: ‘insipid’ (Geertz 1975) and ‘desiccated’ (Ibid) -​ Does shamanism exist? -​ Contemporary resurgence of anthropological interest -​ Community of practitioners who use it as a framework of spirituality -​ Trying to understand how it fits within this new modern framework, how it fits in with our own techniques -​ “Maybe shamanism didn’t exist the way we thought it did, but now it does”  -​ How does it look now? -​ Shamanism and ideas of spirits; connects our concepts of shamanism -​ Expands to energies, not just deities -​ We’re looking at a specific type of supernatural force that is being dealt with; this allows us to interact and manipulate it -​ The dynamic between the human and nonhuman​ -​ Manipulation of the nonhuman for basic sustenance (food, etc.) -​ Intents of spirits (benevolent, malevolent) -​ When we’re saying “spirit” we’re framing it with what our own concept of a “spirit” is; it might be different cross-culturally -​ Spirits: ‘breath, life, wind, awe, mystery, and invisibility’ (Morris 2006) -​ Intangible unless interacting with something -​ Bringing life -​ A mystery we don’t quite understand the full nature of -​ Not quite consistent -​ We cannot necessarily see or interact with them on this plane -​ Giving some form to something completely unstructured What is Shamanism? -​ Shaman: an Evenki word for a spiritual medium -​ Evenki: part of an ethnic group native to Northern Asia; Siberia, Russia, China, Mongolia -​ Reindeer herders, hunter-gatherers; live in a very harsh climate -​ Very isolated -​ Probably borrowed from other cultures with Buddhist practices; paleolithic hunter-gatherer cultures -​ Being within harsher environments -​ Ability to interact with the supernatural -​ Anthropomorphizing the forces around us, to a degree -​ ‘[Shamanism] is the interact with the spirit world for the benefit of those in the material world’ (Townsend 1997) -​ The bridge between two worlds -​ ‘An inspired prophet or leader, a charismatic religions figure with the power to control the spirits, usually by incarnating them’ (Shirokogoroff 1986) -​ What do these spirit mediums do? How do they separate from the rest of society? -​ Defining the need for shamans -​ Interacting with the spirit world for our benefit to give us the things that we need -​ Controlling spirits differentiates shamanism from other similar practices -​ Not appeasing or getting the attention of spirits -​ Ecstasy, trances, out-of-body experiences, states of consciousness allowing to transcend -​ ‘Specializes in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld’ (Eliade 1964) -​ Taking part of their body from the material world, focus everything into that, and transcend -​ Transcending is a repeating theme in other religions Eliade’s Take on Shamanism -​ Shamanism is religious phenomenon out of Asia and Siberia -​ ‘Techniques of ecstasy’ (Eliade 1964) and ‘magical flight’ (Ibid) -​ Inhabit the spirit outside the body  -​ ‘Specializes in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld’ (Eliade 1964) -​ Spirits ae something that need to be confronted -​ Shamans are different from other mystics because of the technique they use to interact with otherworldly forces -​ Hangs on the practice of leaving the body and interacting with spirits -​ Shamanism is not spirit possession Shamanism as a Global Phenomenon -​ ‘[People] interact with the spirit world for the benefit of those in the material world’ (Townsend 1997) -​ Shamans as conduits, or bridges between two worlds (one visible and one invisible) -​ Using broad definitions leaves a lot of room for lots of practices to fall under religion Is Shamanism a Religion? -​ Is it an aspect of a larger structure? Does it have characteristics of a religion? -​ A complex of various beliefs and practices within a religion (Hulkyhrantz 1988) -​ One part of a larger religious structure -​ Can be found in different belief systems outside of Siberia -​ Worldview or ideology -​ Focus on the practitioner themselves, the shaman The Shaman -​ Trance and ecstasy -​ Ekstasis: to drive out or displace -​ Displacement of spirit from body -​ Trance: unconscious or hypnotic state -​ No longer present in this world (but not dead) -​ Altered state of consciousness or shamanistic state of consciousness (Harner 1980) -​ Can be achieved through psychotropics -​ Not widely practiced or considered essential even to those who use them -​ More common is the use of drums and rhythmic dancing Achieving a Shamanistic State I -​ Social and sensory deprivation -​ Fasting, isolation, exposure to extreme temperatures -​ Intense physical movement -​ Dance, long distance running, prolonged physical activity -​ Sleep deprivation -​ Mental concentration in a meditative state -​ Physical pain Shamanistic Practices as Global Phenomenon -​ Examples within christianity -​ Social isolation and sensory deprivation -​ The temptations of Jesus (Matthew 4; Luke 4) -​ Intense physical movement (and pain?) -​ Jacob wrestling the angel (Genesis 32) -​ Pain -​ Opus Dei and self mortification -​ ‘Let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me’ (Luke 9:23) Achieving a Shamanstic State II -​ There are significant psychological and phenomenological differences within the altered state of consciousness (Winkelman 1997) -​ We cannot divorce it from its social and cultural context -​ ‘Certainly shifts in consciousness are a key part of shamanic practice. But to analyze shamanism primarily as a trance phenomenon is akin to analyzing marriage solely as a function of reproductive biology’ (Atkinson 1992) -​ We’re missing a lot of the adjacent things happening by only focusing on this one aspect -​ ‘Shamanism is a social phenomenon in which a person… is regarded as controlling the spirits, exercising his mastery over them’ (Firth 1967) -​ ‘What will be perceived and how it will be experienced is related to the cultural context and the traditional meanings provided by the individual’ (Bourguignon 1979) Shamanism and Spirit Possession -​ Elaide is adamant that spirit possession isn’t happening -​ Lewis suggests that spirit possession is happening -​ Spirit mediumship: communicating with spirits -​ Shamanism: the controlling of spirits -​ Spirit possession: abnormal behavior interpreted as a spirit controlling the body -​ Overlap in many cultures -​ Controlled vs uncontrolled -​ ‘In all Tungus languages the term [shaman] refers to both sexes who have mastered the spirits, who at their will can introduce these spirits into themselves and used their power… in their own interest, particularly helping other people who suffer from the spirits in such a capacity they may possess a complex of special methods’ (Shirokogoroff 1935) -​ There might be multiple ways in which they’re controlling these spirits/exercising their mastery over these spirits Inuit Shamanism -​ Coming into contact with other people, sharing cultures, influencing ways they conceptualize shamanism and practices -​ Significantly more isolated than the Evenki -​ Socially established links between malevolent spirits and the breaching of taboo -​ Spirits and taboo -​ Taboo: social norms or expectations -​ Use their own spirits to figure out which taboo was being broken and then remedy it/come up with a solution to remedy it -​ Ecological and gender taboos -​ e.g. didn’t like mixing winter/spring animal -​ e.g. menstrual taboos Inuit Etiology of Misfortune -​ Breach of taboo -​ Soul loss -​ The spirit wanders when they’re asleep or can leave if they’re afraid -​ They can be captured; the spirit cannot return to the body -​ Manifested by sickness/illness -​ Sorcery -​ Using spirits against other people for their detriment  -​ Object intrusion -​ A foreign object was introduced into the body, must be extracted to return to good health -​ Spirit intrusion -​ Possession -​ Not well-developed/common amongst the Inuit -​ Described as extreme or quite harsh Neo Shamanism -​ Spiritualism has always had a place in Western society -​ Folk religions, etc. -​ Normalization of drug culture -​ Disenchantment with western religions -​ Searching for spiritualism in response to global capitalism -​ Most of our life isn’t based on empirical judgment or one way of thinking -​ Looking for older/alternative ways of knowing -​ Response to increase interest in self-help and talk therapy -​ Response to a general critique of dominant western structures -​ The Techniques of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge (Carlos Castaneda) -​ The Way of the Shaman (Michael Harner) The Core of Neo Shamanism -​ The revival or continuation of ancient visionary (spiritual) tradition -​ The use of altered states of consciousness to interact with a spiritual reality -​ Two realities -​ Waking reality -​ Spiritual reality -​ New worldview on the relationship of humans and the environment -​ Connecting/bridging the gap between spiritual reality/spiritual world and the environment -​ Healing and health -​ Timeline (Jakobsen 1980) -​ The time, commitment, and process of becoming a shaman -​ Quicker methods/timelines of becoming a shaman in workshops, meanwhile in most societies it take years, or it is “thrust upon” them rather than being a choice -​ Individualism and self-empowerment -​ Shifting from the group to the individual -​ Self-help, self-actualization, and achieving rapid results (Harner 1980) Prophet vs. Priest -​ Where do you get the power/authority to interact with the supernatural? -​ Priest: religious authority is attached to an established institution -​ Prophet: religious power comes from revelation (directly from divine) or personal charisma -​ You find one or the other (Lessa & Vogt 1958) -​ Where there are gaps in the authority, these trends of neo shamanism tend to emerge and other people fill the gap Interpreting Shamanism -​ Shaman’s interact with the nonvisible, unseen side of reality: -​ Healing -​ Economic and ecological side -​ Political aspect Review 1 | Sept. 23 Topics covered: -​ The anthropology of religion -​ Morris introduction -​ Metcalf, Geertz, Kapchan, Eller -​ Shamanism -​ Morris chapter 1 -​ Turner, Mullins Anthropology -​ Anthropology is ethnography -​ Participant observation -​ Living and participating in a society/religion for an extended group of time -​ Involved and as close to what/who you’re observing as possible -​ Malinowski, Wacquant, Turpin What is religion? -​ ‘Religion is a social institution, a sociocultural system… ill understood when simply viewed as an ideology or belief system’ (Morris 2006) -​ ‘By which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life’ (Yinger 1970) -​ ‘A metasystem that solves problems of meaning… generated in the large part (but not entirely) by the social order, grounding that order within a theoretically ultimate reality within which those problems will “make sense”’ (Ortner 1978) -​ ‘A set of rituals, rationalized by myth, which mobilizes supernatural powers for the purpose of achieving or preventing transformation, of state in man and nature’ (Wallace 1966) -​ ‘The feelings, acts, and experiences of individual men… in relation to whatever they may consider divine’ (William 1958) -​ ‘A propitiation of conciliation of powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature and human life’ (Frazer 1958) The anthropology of religion -​ The ‘least spectacular the drab’ (Wacquant 2004) and the ‘usually trivial, sometimes dramatic, but always significant’ (Malinowski 2014) -​ ‘Theologians characteristically workin libraries. Their primary interest is in texts… anthropologists are interested in religion as lived not mentalized’ (Metcalf 2022) -​ Anthropologists view religion as a lived aspect of social organization, not just a belief system Attributes -​ Ritual practices -​ An ethical code and body of doctrine -​ Beliefs -​ Scripture -​ Oral tradition -​ Patterns of social relations, i.e. a church or place of congregation -​ Hierarchy of ritual specialists -​ Tendency to create dichotomy between the sacred and profane -​ An ethos (spirit/character) that gives scope for emotional or mystical experience Attributes and case studies -​ Jediism Intellectualist approach -​ Religion is a way to explain the events of the world -​ ‘Intended for the explanation, prediction, and control of space-time events’ (Horton 1971) -​ Rain dance vs. farmer praying for rain Emotionalist approach -​ Religion having a cathartic function (Tambiah 1990) -​ Comfort in understanding, the unknown is knowable -​ ‘By which a group of people struggles with the ultimate problems of human life’ (Yinger 1970) -​ ‘A metasystem that solves the problems of meaning… generated in the large part (but not entirely) by the social order, grounding that order within a theoretically ultimate reality within which those problems will “make sense”’ (Ortner 1978) Structuralist approach -​ Levi-Strauss and communication -​ Durkheim and the parameters of our existence -​ Social and cultural structures are just as real as the people living in them -​ Outlines what’s acceptable and not acceptable -​ Critique: social and cultural structures as obligatory pathways Interpretive approach -​ Key words: semantic, symbolic, semiotic, or hermeneutic -​ Religion as a symbolic system -​ Clifford Geertz, Mary Douglas, Marshall Sahlins, John Beattie, Victor Turner, and Stanley Tambiah Cognitive approach -​ Combination of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology -​ Religion as ‘counter intuitive’ (Morris 2006) but that appear to be natural or intuitive Phenomenological approach -​ Epoch: suspension of prior judgment and ‘bracketing’ (Morris 2006) of commonsense understandings -​ Cultural relativism and awareness of ethnocentrism -​ Eidetic intuition: discovering the intuitive meaning -​ Thick descriptions and ethnography Sociological approach -​ A social phenomena that needs to be understood within its socio-historical context -​ Religion as highly influential in social life and cultural meaning and vice versa -​ Boas and the social, historical, and environmental context -​ ‘Religion is thus only one perspective in terms of which humans construe the world, and it is certainly not the most basic’ (Morris 2006) Shamanism -​ The interact with the spirit world for the benefit of those in the material world (Townsend 1997) -​ ‘An inspired prophet or leader, a charismatic religions figure with the power to control the spirits, usually by incarnating them’ (Shirokogoroff 1986) -​ ‘Specializes in a trance during which his soul is believed to leave his body and ascend to the sky or descend to the underworld’ (Eliade 1964) Eliade’s take on shamanism -​ ‘Techniques of ecstasy’ (Eliade 1964) and ‘magical flight’ (Ibid) -​ Shamans are different from other mystics because of the technique they use to interact with otherworldly forces -​ Shamanism is not spirit possession Shamans and their practice -​ Trance and ecstasy -​ Ekstasis: to drive out or displace -​ Altered states of consciousness or shamanstic state of consciousness (Harner 1980) -​ Can be achieved through psychotropics -​ More common is the use of drums and rhythmic dancing Shamanistic state of consciousness -​ Social and sensory deprivation -​ Intense physical movement -​ Sleep deprivation -​ Mental concentration in a meditative state -​ Physical pain -​ There are significantly psychological and phenomenological difference within the altered state of consciousness (Winkelman 1997) -​ We cannot divorce it from its social and cultural context -​ ‘Social phenomenon’ (Firth 1967) -​ ‘Certainly shifts in consciousness are a key part of shamanic practice. But to analyze shamanism primarily as a trance phenomenon is akin to analyzing marriage solely as a function of reproductive biology’ (Atkinson 1992) -​ ‘What will be perceived and how it will be experienced is related to the cultural context and the traditional meanings provided by the individual’ (Bourguignon 1979) Shamanism and spirit possession -​ Elaide is adamant that spirit possession isn’t happening -​ Lewis suggests that spirit possession is happening -​ Spirit mediumship: communicating with spirits -​ Shamanism: the controlling of spirits -​ Spirit possession: abnormal behavior interpreted as a spirit controlling the body Inuit shamanism -​ Taboo and spirits -​ Ecological and gender taboos -​ Inuit etiology of misfortune is linked to breach of taboo -​ Soul loss -​ Sorcery -​ Object intrusion -​ Spirit intrusion Neo shamanism -​ Normalization of drug culture -​ Disenchantment with western religion -​ Searching for spiritualism in response to global capitalism -​ Response to increase interest in self-help and talk therapy -​ Response to a general critique of dominant western structures Neo shamanism: the core -​ The revival or continuation of ancient visionary (spiritual) tradition -​ The use of altered states of consciousness to interact with a spiritual reality -​ Two realities -​ Waking reality -​ Spiritual reality -​ New worldview on the relationship of humans and the environment -​ Healing and health -​ Time line (jakobsen 1980) -​ Individualism and self-empowerment -​ Self-help, self-actualization, and achieving rapid results (Harner 1980) Interpreting shamanism -​ Shamans interact with the nonvisible: -​ Healing -​ Economic and ecological side -​ Political aspect *MIDTERM 1 SEPT. 25 @ 2:00 PM* Buddhism and Spirit Cults | Sept. 27-Oct. 7 Readings: -​ Morris; chapter 2 👍 Buddhism and Spirit Cults -​ Shamanism and Buddhism -​ Evenki Shamanism may have been heavily influenced by Buddhism after coming into contact with hegemonic empires -​ Shaman may come from the term “Samana” (Buddhist monk) -​ Conceptualization of cosmology is similar to Shamanism -​ Mutually influencing each other -​ A global phenomenon that is acted upon differently depending on language, state, etc. -​ Buddhism has a very long, detailed history as a structured belief system -​ ‘Buddhism is a very ancient religion: it has behind it two thousand five hundred years of history’ (Sangharakshita 1990) -​ Postmodernist pushback -​ Buddhism as a western concept -​ Sangharakshita = Dennis Philip Edward Lingwood -​ Trying to cram this religion into our own beliefs of the religious institution criteria -​ Not a monolithic institution ‘everywhere the same’ (Keown 1996) -​ Can’t be one singular religion because it’s being practiced differently in other areas (similar argument against shamanism) -​ Does inconsistency negate something as a religion? -​ Religions are inconsistent in almost every aspect of what they are -​ 45000 denominations of christianity globally -​ Trinitarian vs nontrinitarian -​ Are these three distinct people (god, jesus christ, the holy ghost), or are they one singular person manifested differently? -​ Trinitarian: one person; nontrinitarian: three different people  -​ 250 AD; prior to the adoption of christianity as the main religion of the Roman empire Buddhism -​ Dharma: path of salvation from the pains and misery of this world -​ Buddhists (practitioners) are people who follow and practice this Dharma -​ Not concerned with Gods but about human life, sentient beings, and the elimination of suffering -​ Not concerned about deity at all in this sense -​ Human beings’ escape from suffering -​ Knowledge (pure knowledge) is the key to escape or salvation -​ Removal/separation of the reality we’re in now to a new reality -​ Separation from deity/being contingent on deity is unique to Buddhism -​ Understanding of the way things are, not reliant on faith, grace, etc. -​ Realizing the true reality of life and the world around you -​ Individualistic -​ Letting go of attachments Is Buddhism a Religion? -​ Religious attributes: -​ Ritual practices(?) -​ Meditation, observances -​ Ethical code/body of doctrine -​ Beliefs -​ Scripture -​ Oral tradition -​ Patterns of social relations (Not the same as other religions that emphasize congregation) -​ Temples -​ Hierarchy of ritual specialists -​ Monks, specialists -​ Dichotomy between sacred and profane -​ Ethos that gives scope for emotional/mystical experience -​ Religion is ‘belief in spiritual beings’ (Tylor 1871) -​ Separation between us and things outside of our control -​ Explicit rejection of deity is necessary for salvation -​ ‘Our ideas of god and soul are false and empty’ (Rahula 1959) -​ Detachment from reality isn’t possible if we believe in things/deities that keep us grounded to our reality -​ Buddhism is a rejection of certain types of religion -​ Buddhism as an atheistic system (Conze 1951) -​ Fundamentally opposed to what religion is -​ Unique cosmology and rituals to deal with it (Lehman 1971; Sangaharaskita 1990; Lewis 1997) -​ An atheistic system grounded in a theistic practice/ideology -​ Buddhism as an ethical religion, akin to human secularism (Spiro 1970) -​ Half in, half out -​ Is nirvana akin to our conceptualization of God? -​ Buddhism reveals that it’s possible our inability to understand religion that falls outside the world religion is like trying to “fit a square peg in a circle hole”  -​ ‘Buddhist was not interested in knowing whence came the world in which he lives and suffers, he takes it as a given fact, and his whole concern is to escape it’ (Durkheim 1915) Buddhism as Atheistic -​ Buddhism does deal with the supernatural -​ Deity’s (deva), spirits (yaka), and ghosts (preta), tormented souls -​ The non visible world -​ Laukika (this world) vs. lokottara (supra worldly) -​ Maybe we need to reconsider what religion is entirely -​ Not atheistic in the sense that the supernatural doesn’t exist, it just doesn’t sway someone’s path to escape/salvation What is Buddhism? -​ Dharma is the teachings of Buddha, Siddharth Gautama -​ This one individual who was able to escape and obtain salvation from the pains of the world; people follow his teachings -​ Axial age: a time period of large, immense, philosophical and religious change; lays the foundation for all religious beliefs now -​ Pythagoras -​ Formed a secret school that practiced a rejection of the world -​ Looking at transmigration of souls; the soul is permanent; reincarnation -​ Zarathustra -​ Creates the distinction between an inherent good and inherent evil -​ Main root of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity -​ Lao Tzu -​ Foundation of Taoism; introduces the Tao, extremely powerful but immensely humble, intangible and unknowable -​ Omnipotence, a being that is everything all at once -​ Mahavira -​ 24th supreme teacher of Jainism -​ Complete rejection of everything worldly -​ Letting go of attachments that keep you grounded -​ Separation of mind, body, and emotion; rejection of all things human to understand the soul -​ Isaiah -​ Present in all three Abrahamic faiths -​ Transition to large scale ‘paddy empires’ (Scott 2009) -​ There is consolidation of groups into state-like entities -​ Built around the idea of bureaucracy -​ Based around rice growing, forces people to remain in one place; agrarian patterns -​ Period of extreme violence by consolidation power -​ Power of state comes from people; consolidating other people and forcing them into these states -​ Change in how people are thinking about the world and how the world is organized -​ 4 noble truths -​ Truth of suffering -​ Truth of the cause of suffering -​ Truth of the end of suffering -​ Truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering  -​ Adoption as a formal religion by Emperor Ashoka (becoming a formal religion from a grassroots movement) and adoption of the pali canon -​ Vinaya Pitka: the corpus of rules governing the lives of monks -​ Separation of ritual specialists -​ How they’re supposed to live, how they’re separate -​ Sutra Pitka: the sermons and teachings of the Buddha -​ Doctrine/scripture -​ Abhidharma: the books of scholastic philosophy 4 Noble Truths -​ Everything in the world is suffering -​ Key distinction, differentiates buddhism from other religions -​ Suffering isn’t contingent on our actions or caused by a fall from grace -​ Our choices aren’t bringing us closer or farther from a deity -​ Suffering is a reality of life -​ Individualistic interpretation/interaction with the world -​ Atheistic, but still religious; deity still exists -​ ‘The first link in the chain is contact with matter, and this produces sensation. Out of sensation comes desire, out of desire attachment to the illusions of life, out of attachment karma, out of karma comes birth, and out of birth– age, sickness and death– the springs of suffering.’ (Vaswani 1960, 55) -​ Suffering is attached to the ephemeral reality of the world -​ Everything in this world is decaying and dying; nothing is permanent; suffering is a constant cycle -​ Our rebirth still keeps us stuck in this cycle -​ How does this normative reality created by adherence to these truths affect how these practitioners are interacting with the world around them? -​ This idea of impermanence isn’t unique -​ ‘All that cometh is vanity… put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity’ (KJV: Ecclesiastes 11) -​ Some have compared this to nihilism -​ Nihilism = indifference and giving up; “I can’t do anything, the world is the way it is” -​ Buddhism = indifference and empowerment; “I can make change” -​ Desire is the cause of suffering -​ What grounds us/keeps us locked in this cycle -​ Elimination of desire will eliminate the suffering -​ If attachment is suffering, relinquishing it should eliminate the suffering -​ Thirst, desire, craving (Rahula 1959) -​ The normative reality these practitioners live by shape how they choose to interact with it -​ Following the 8 fold path; dictates how we should interact with the world -​ Right view: know the truth -​ Right intention: free your mind of evil -​ Right speech: say nothing that hurts others -​ Right action: work for the good of others -​ Right livelihood: respect life -​ Right effort: resist evil -​ Right concentration: practice meditation -​ Right mindfulness: control your thoughts Buddhism as a Worldview -​ ‘Dukkha, anicca, anatta’ -​ Dukkha: existence is suffering -​ Anicca: there is an unrelenting law of change -​ Anatta: the idea of unchanging self is fictional or false -​ Ethical conduct -​ Compassion and love for the world, attitudes and actions which promote harmony and happiness -​ Mental discipline and meditation -​ Cultivation of mental effort and awareness of all forms of bodily feelings and sensation -​ Growing and awareness of how we’re connected becomes crucial -​ Wisdom -​ New worldview, sense of detachment, and seeing the world through this new framework -​ Emphasizing how social and cultural institutions like religion shape how we interact with the world around us -​ Adding an extra dimension into our normative reality and how we understand its structure and the rules that dictate it What is Nirvana? -​ Merging of the self with all the self (Humphreys 1987) -​ Elimination/disappearing of the self that’s grounding us to the impermanent world -​ (Somewhat) spiritualist perspective; the spirit merging with something else -​ There is no underlying entity of a divine, transcendental, eternal, or metaphysical nature beyond this world or that is experienced in nirvana (Macy 1991; Brazier 2011) -​ There’s a difference between complete disbelief of the spiritual and indifference -​ We have to leave it to the people we study to define nirvana, let them drive the narrative and speak for themselves to get their understanding Buddhism and the State -​ World of rejectionism, going against Hinduism -​ A belief system of rejection while also being cozied up to the state -​ World renunciation and social reality -​ Religion eventually becomes a weapon of the state -​ Highest highs, lowest lows -​ Buddhism at the state level, Buddhism being practiced individually/within a household -​ Buddhism not only as an ideology but as a prevailing reality embedded within the thoughts of people -​ Deeply imbedded in the thoughts and cultures of people (Nash 1965) -​ Even though it’s anti-state by nature, it becomes so embedded in the normative reality of the individual that they bring those institutions with them as they move from system to system and influence them -​ Myanmar (Burma): Buddhism vs supernaturalism -​ Separation between Buddhism and supernaturalism is distinct; two different ways of thinking about/conceptualizing the world -​ Offer different ways to alleviate suffering in the world -​ Buddhism and spirit cults (Spiro 1970) -​ Buddhism framed as one half of a binary -​ Existing within the same cosmology, but different ways of conceptualizing/interacting with it -​ Apollonian Dionysian dichotomy (Nietzchen 1972; Benedict 1934) -​ Two sides of the same coin  -​ Tambiah and a structuralist approach to Buddhism and Thailand (means of communicating social and cultural structures making up normative reality) -​ How does Buddhism interact/interweave with pre-existing structures -​ Grand tradition of Buddhism vs folk tradition of Buddhism -​ Represents an inconsistency in religious practice and one we can identify academically -​ High theology where you’ll have certain people practicing a certain way, and people outside that immediate sphere practicing a different way -​ There’s a difference in Buddhism from how monks and dedicated ritual specialists are practicing and conceptualizing it, and how local practitioners are practicing and conceptualizing the religion in its entirety -​ Paradigm of great vs. little traditions (Marriott 1955) -​ Distinction between what the text says and what people do -​ Is there a difference in what they’re trying to accomplish? -​ Nibbanic Buddhism: complete world renunciation, attempting salvation or nirvana -​ Kammatic Buddhism: accumulating merit for a better position in the rebirth cycle -​ Nibbanic Buddhism as a rite of passage -​ As people move from one stage to another, they might live a Nibbanic Buddhist lifestyle for a while as “preparation” -​ Overseeing funeral rites -​ Monks as mediators for the person going back into the rebirth cycle -​ ‘Lead the man’s spirit to heaven and make possible a better birth’ (Tambiah 1970) -​ How does it interact with indigenous (pre-existing) beliefs? -​ How does it change from place to place? -​ Buddhism as the moral justification of the state -​ Buddhism as the state’s ‘consciousness” -​ Rules and framework that a state uses to govern its interactions with its populus -​ Fusion of national identity with Buddhism Islam and Popular Belief | Oct. 9-21 Readings: -​ Morris; chapter 3 -​ Mahmood (recommended) 👍 Sacrifice and Atonement Theory -​ Frances Young (theologian): focuses on the idea of sacrifice and the relationship with the atonement/death of Jesus Christ -​ Sacrifice/atonement theory: describing how this sacrifice works -​ What is sacrifice and what does sacrifice mean? -​ Doing something to appease a god/gain their favor, or it’s part of a process of change -​ This idea of sacrifice comes from the Israelite tradition of blood sacrifice -​ Animals were sacrificed in place of a human on behalf of the people -​ Someone taking the place of someone else and dying -​ Symbolic of their messiah and what was to come, believed that one day their messiah would come and save them -​ ‘Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the lord? Behold to obey is better than sacrifice, and the hearken than the fat of rams’ (KJV: Samuel 15) -​ There are varying degrees of sacrifice  -​ Not all sacrifice is equal; the intent behind it is important and separates sacrifices -​ Sacrifice and obedience are not the same -​ If there is a distinction, why is sacrificing not the same as obeying? -​ A sacrifice isn’t a sacrifice if you don’t want to give something up -​ If you’re giving up your time, is it the same when you’re busy as when you’re not doing anything? -​ Sacrifice requires you to give up something you truly want -​ Can you be objective if you’re only objective towards things you have no emotional investment in (things that don’t matter to you)? -​ Can we be objective in our own lives? Islam and Popular Tradition -​ Not some monolithic entity with a unitary ‘essence’, but rather a cultural tradition that takes diverse forms, according to various social and historical contexts (Morris 2006) -​ The actual practice might be different -​ A lived reality expressed through certain practices and institutions -​ Cultures adapt based on the context that they’re in -​ It’s more complicated to look at religion this way in practice than in theory -​ It’s hard to study Islam this way because of the dichotomy that’s created -​ ‘To describe and analyze how the universalistic principles of Islam have been realized in various social and historical contexts without representing Islam as a seamless essence on the one hand, or as a plastic congeries of beliefs and practices on the other’ (Eickelman 1982) -​ Representation also becomes a challenge when avoiding creating our own narratives ad instead communicating the narratives locals are pushing -​ Which narrative is more correct/right? -​ The social reality of religion, specifically how it becomes integrated into everything around it, makes it more complicated -​ ‘Is at once a religion, and a civilization and social order based upon the revealed principles of the religion. It is an archetypal reality, residing eternally in the Divine Intellect’ (Nasr 1981) -​ Shows how religions are more than just an ideology, it’s just as much an expanse into social reality -​ ‘Islam is neither a distinctive social structure nor a heterogeneous collection of belief, artifacts, customs and morals. It is a tradition’ (Asad 1986) -​ Tradition as the linguistic expression of a lived reality -​ Calling it a tradition illustrates how something imagined and intangible becomes tangible and material -​ Taking rules that come from a book and turns them into real social structures -​ Lived in all aspects of life, not just mentalized -​ “True” Islam and the structure of authority -​ General terms; what is considered “true” Islam? -​ Differing from place to place due to influence of sociocultural structures -​ Even though it is a tradition, it doesn’t imply that it is unchanging or even that it has a unifying, seamless social principle/direction -​ Different/alternative conceptions of the religion itself; how it interacts with people inside and outside the religion -​ Which one is going to become the dominant narrative and represent the general consensus? -​ There will always be resistance in order to maintain dignity, power and self-respect  -​ ‘The definition of what is or is not “Islamic” is likely not to be about how closely society mirrors a known textual blueprint as about how and by whom specific texts are used to underwrite specific practices and general notions of authority’ (Starrett 1997) -​ Trying to understand the inconsistencies, and to do that we have to understand the context each group of practitioners finds themselves in -​ Half of the world’s Muslims live in southeast Asia (highest amount in Indonesia) -​ So much is heavily influenced by what’s going on in a specific country -​ Religion as the motivation for social action and social process (Patai 1952) -​ Culture is not ‘basically religion’ (Morris 2006) -​ ‘Many other beliefs, concepts, motivations, and activities influence their social life, besides those of religion’ (Starrett 1997) Islam as a Religion -​ Based on the revelatory visions of the Prophet Muhamman (PBUH) -​ Born in Mecca around 570 CE (post-Roman empires) -​ Economic crossroads of empires -​ Byzantine, Persian, South Arab -​ Large amounts of different ideas about how the world works and our responsibilities all coming together in one spot -​ Nexus of economic exchange -​ Rise of empires; the ‘disintegration of tribal society’ (Robinson 1971) -​ States forcing people into their empires; destruction of the tribal societies -​ Massive social and cultural change -​ Clash of empires -​ Visions of the angel Gabriel around his 40s; development of the Quran -​ A message of ‘uncompromising monotheism’ (Morris 2006) -​ New way of conceptualizing deity/cosmology around us -​ Monotheism isn’t a new idea; coming into contact with the early Christian church -​ Significantly stricter than other monotheistic entities of that time -​ A resistance religion by creating an identity for people who have lost theirs -​ One God, One Book, One Prophet -​ This message itself was part of the attraction to Islam -​ Even in the way that they communicate is still seen as direct from God -​ 5 pillars -​ Explicit profession of faith (Shadhadah) -​ la ilaha illa allah, Muhammadum rasula allah -​ A few different phrases that Muslims repeat and ritualize; integrated into different aspects of day-to-day life -​ What you believe in, who you are -​ Prayer (Salah) -​ The most well-known and easily identifiable -​ Five times a day -​ Highly ritualized -​ Not just a prayer, but a prayer accompanied by ritual cleansing -​ Illustrates the relationship between deity and human -​ Communication between deity and practitioner/petitioner is mandated and permitted (with steps in order to prepare oneself to communicate) -​ A “parent-like” relationship(?) -​ Democratization of deity -​ Alms giving (Zakah) -​ Giving a portion of your wealth  -​ Conceptualization of the relationship between the individual and their community -​ Those committing themselves to God are responsible for their community -​ To both unify and differentiate the group; you owe something to the community; you aren’t the owner of 100% of your life, you owe a portion of it to the people around you -​ Fasting (Sawn) -​ Abstaining from food and drink for a certain period of time -​ Holidays (i.e. Ramadan), cultural identity -​ Obligation to fast from sunup to sundown -​ Participation differentiates those within the group from those outside the group -​ Pilgrimage (Haj) -​ Traveling to Mecca/Makkah at least once in one’s life -​ Creates geospatial significance -​ This is the place where Muhammad had his visions and was driven out for them, he eventually returned and conquered Mecca/Makkah -​ Perpetuating views and responsibilities to the world around oneself -​ These pillars give added significance/meaning to specific areas of the world (i.e. Mecca/Makkah, in the context of Islam) Islam and Social Life -​ ‘Islam is the blueprint of a social order. It holds that a set of rules exists, eternal, divinely ordained, and independent of the will of man, which defines the proper ordering of society. This model is available in writing; it is equally and symmetrically available to all literate men, and to all those willing to heed literate men. These rules are to be implemented throughout social life.’ (Gellner 1981) -​ You have to fill out/add other things to a blueprint -​ What other things contribute to the construction of our social reality? -​ How does Islam mix with pre-existing social and cultural structures? -​ How does Islam interact with other social and cultural structures? -​ Islam becomes intertwined with other social and cultural norms -​ No clergy or priesthood 1.​ Relationship and positionality of Deity to petitioners -​ Equal footing, there’s almost a familiar relationship or encouraged familiarity between the petitioners and the deity themselves; no one they need to go through 2.​ Authority placed on the words communicated through Muhammed -​ Authority doesn’t come from the prophet themself, but the words communicated through them -​ Bringing of the divine to the petitioners themselves -​ Islam as a scribal religion -​ Power and authority comes from the words themselves -​ Interpretation is highly subjective to the social and cultural context -​ Big differences between Islam being practiced in Indonesia and being practiced elsewhere, for example Islam and Spirit (Zar) Cults -​ How does Islam deal with popular tradition/belief? -​ Zar cults in Northern Somalia and Sudan -​ How do these different structures interact? -​ What happens when they’re oppositional? Zar Cults in Somalia -​ Man is inherently sinful and removed from the presence of God -​ Additional measures/intermediaries people need to be taken to remedy these separation -​ Holy man or Saints -​ Not unique to Somalia, there are other traditions in Islam with holy men/saints -​ Set apart from society through the endowment of mystical powers -​ Religious specialists -​ As a religion that has one prophet, these holy men don’t align with the image of the prophet, who didn’t have mystical powers -​ Ability to administer or relieve curses -​ People seek out these intermediaries -​ Not all of them are attributing their powers to the one god himself -​ Jinn or Saar (Zar) -​ While they’re mentioned in the Quran (how they maintain their existence within this scribal religion), there’s no clear explanation of where they come from -​ There’s folk explanations -​ People can believe they’re part of the core doctrine, even if they don’t exist in it -​ Certain periphery elements are taken and latched onto/expanded out in addition to the main body of doctrine/scripture -​ they’re there, but they’re not of great concern -​ Play a vital role in the practice of Islam in Somalia -​ Islam as almost exclusively masculine in Somalia; women’s involvement and participation is very small/almost nonexistent -​ Ritualization, social hierarchies, the gatherings and organizations are almost exclusively masculine -​ The periphery entities are very much real; whenever men are dealing with these supernatural forces, in order to remedy this, they use holy men and the Quran as tools of authority to eject these spirits -​ Upon expulsion, men will recite the Muslim creed as a return from impurity to purity -​ Women work outside of the theocratic institution; use of seance and spiritual women -​ Shamans that allow them to interact with these spirits are also women who don’t fit social norms of womanhood (childless women, widows, women who never married) -​ People who are excluded from the institution have to find other ways to deal with it -​ Power doesn’t come from the institution or the Quran or the holy men/saints -​ No longer being treated as an intermediary between God and man; intervening between the people themselves and the spirits -​ Jinns are mentioned in the Quran, thus permissible and connected to Islam -​ ‘Religions of the oppressed’ (Lewis 1986) -​ Seances required money; financial compensation -​ This compensation that husbands pay is in a lot of ways social compensation for women being excluded from other spheres of power/influence -​ Cultures of resistance (Kapadia 1995) -​ Addresses cultures that go against the hegemonic cultural consensus -​ What do people do when they don’t have access to the dominant institution? -​ Outside of the dominant culture, there are cultures that oppose it in order to mold or fit into this reality while still trying to allow themselves to have dignity and respect -​ Popular superstitions or traditions Resistance Cultures -​ Challenges the assumptions of Moffat and Dumont about a pervasive cultural consensus -​ There is a pervasive cultural consensus amongst the caste systems -​ ‘Distinct cultural representations create for themselves a normative world in which they have dignity, power and self-respect’ (Kapadia 1995) -​ People will create a world around them that will allow them to be successful and obtain success and value -​ ‘Is no uniform women’s perspective in Aruloor, Aruloor Hindu women are positions and sharply divided by caste and class, and their experience and understandings of the world vary greatly’ (Ibid) Periphery Phenomenon -​ When you have a dominant cultural consensus, there’s people that fall outside of it and form around the periphery -​ Members aren’t people part of the dominant power structure -​ Peripheral to moral order, unconcerned with social norms -​ If they’re outside of the structure and the power structure doesn’t give them any recourse, why would they be concerned with social norms? -​ Spirits themselves are periphery, outside the theological framework -​ At the same time, they’re so connected to Islam because Jinns are mentioned in the Quran -​ How do these peripheral beliefs work their way into the popular social framework? -​ It’s not about open rebellion/overthrowing/etc., it’s about working and molding the blueprint into their specific beliefs and needs -​ It becomes adopted into the prevailing consensus as it moves closer to the center Zar Cults in Sudan -​ Constantinides (1977: 1987) and Boddy (1989) -​ Not dissimilar to Somalia -​ Zar Bori: mainly consisting of women -​ Zar Tumbura: lower class man, mainly descendants of slaves -​ Both condemned by the social elite (scholars of the law) and labeled as “superstition” -​ Considered “outsiders” socially -​ There’s a difference between “faith” and “superstition”; labeling it as superstition “takes away” its religious properties -​ Takes them and moves them behind; removes them from the trajectory people are going -​ The result of urbanization in Sudan -​ Directly linked to images of modernity; moving from rule to urban centers -​ Not proposing that zar cults of traditional, they’re proposing that it’s a reaction to where Islam has taken them -​ A means to adapt to this type of change by the people left behind from the image of modernity -​ Giving stability in times where there is significantly less stability -​ How the dynamic between Islam and women changes as they move from rural areas to urban centers -​ Autonomy of women becomes restricted even more -​ Zar cults as a “necessity” -​ Mirroring their male counterparts -​ Mirroring this new form of social organization  -​ Men are also being affected by instability and restriction of autonomy by urbanization -​ By being set up as male priority, there’s a need to create something/a new structure that allows women to have dignity and self-respect -​ ‘During the course of the dancing several women may achieve, or assume, a state of dissociation, the drumming, incense, rhythmic bodily jerking, and over breathing, all being employed as techniques. Trance allows for considerable bodily and emotional abandon. The same women whose culture normally demands of them sedate, restrained behavior may weep, tremble, rage, shriek, yelp, beat themselves violently against the ground, smoke and drink openly, or strut about arrogantly’ (Constantinides 1977) -​ They serve a social purpose -​ The healing aspect of it is almost just an excuse to create an alternative social structure, one where the typical norms expected of people can be ignored -​ Not an attack on Islam or the norms created by the religious institution -​ Sacrifices allow them to tow the line and allow them to live outside of the social expectations without it being an attack on the institution -​ Everyday forms of resistance, ‘unwritten history of resistance’ (Scott 1985) -​ They’re constantly trying to justify their existence amidst the already existing structure; always trying to connect themselves and trying to inject themselves into the dominant institution they’re rejected from -​ “We are not separate from this, we are a part of this” -​ There’s thousands of resistances that were unsuccessful and/or never talked about -​ Boddy looks at the power and gender binary created between men and women as essential, thus not periphery -​ Not as periphery as we think -​ Essential to social norms and the religion itself -​ Women as reactionary to men -​ While these cults aren’t strictly part of Islam, they’re connected by these tiny threads that allows them to conceptualize it as part of Islam -​ Morris is very critical of Boddy -​ What Boddy says sounds great and logically makes sense, but it contradicts with the ethnographic data -​ Disagrees with Lewis that the actions of women aren’t reactionary to men Saints and Scholars of Islam -​ ‘Two channels of muslim religious life’ (Gellner 1969) -​ Orthodox and Mystic -​ ‘Within Muslim societies, there is a permanent, if sometimes latent, tension and opposition between two styles of religious life. On the one hand, there is a puritanical, unitarian, individualist, scripturalist ideal of a single deity, which has disclosed its final message in a definitive revelation available to all who care to read. This version spurns mediation and neither requires nor formally allows clergy; it presupposes only a literate class of scribes who act as guardians and exegetes of the revelation’ (Gellner 1981) -​ Authority and ultimate knowledge comes from this book -​ One gets divine authority from the knowledge acquired from the book -​ Mystical emphasizes connection or lineage to the Prophet -​ Authority and power connected to lineage of the Prophet -​ Ahmed points out the frailty of Gellner’s ideas (1976) -​ This strict binary distinction isn’t really there; visually it’s nice to conceptualize the divide in where people think the authority comes from  -​ Scribal scholars have aspects of mysticism within them; mystics also have scribal authority within them -​ Gellner points out that orthodox Islam has an affinity for modernity -​ Trajectory and progression -​ We need to reject notions of modernity -​ ‘Image of their future’ (Marx 1919) -​ Something you see in the future that you want to become -​ Rejecting the idea that everyone wants to become like the West reveals there’s lots of different ideas of the future -​ Mutaqadum (progress or advancement) vs. asri (contemporary) -​ Modernity is very much a directional word; future-tense word -​ ‘Authenticity, organization, education, hygiene, as well as social consciousness, and piety’ (Deeb 2011) -​ It’s not as if people are completely different -​ Desire to move forward; to progress in areas of material and spiritual needs Hinduism and New Religious Movements | Oct. 25-Nov. 8 Readings: -​ Morris; chapter 4 👍 -​ Narayan and Sood (recommended) ‘Oh, east is east, and west is west, never shall the twain meet’ (Kipling 1889) -​ In the beginning of an Ayurvedic medical book, it begins with this quote -​ Giving alternative medicinal remedies -​ Criticism for the quote -​ They can’t meet because they’re worlds apart/nothing alike ‘Never Shall the Twain Meet’ (Ibid) -​ The West: aggressive, extroverted, selfish, analytic, a ‘curse to the cosmos’ (Garde 1975) -​ The East: cooperative, synthetic, introverted, hospitable, and generous (Ibid) -​ Polar opposite characteristics; can’t find common ground because they’re too different -​ Anthropologists were interested in the “exotic” because it seemed that the cultures were so different from the West -​ Building narratives of “just being different from us”; they’re free and open to the world, all the things we aren’t -​ Example: the Potlatch -​ We’re different, but we do have some similarities -​ Underlying motivations are universal -​ The full quote: ‘Oh, east is east, and west is west, never shall the twain meet till earth and sky stand presently at God’s great judgment seat. But there is neither east nor west, border, nor breed, nor birth, when two strong men stand face to face though they come from the ends of the earth’ (Kipling 1889) -​ There are big differences, but when people stand face to face, there isn’t that much difference -​ We can’t overgeneralize/stereotype these religions/cultures; it throws up barriers and makes us seem too different -​ Comes from people romanticizing certain attributes -​ Hinduism is heavily wrapped up in Hindu nationalism, being used as a tool to justify certain social/political actions -​ ‘But such contrasts, based on monolithic conceptions of particular cultural traditions, seem to me, whilst having some validity, to be extremely misleading, it not obfuscating’ (Morris 2006)  -​ He’s not saying there’s no difference between the two -​ We have to be careful in this creation of fictional narrative based on overgeneralized stereotypes; people aren’t as different as we want them to be -​ Trying to humanize people -​ Hinduism is unique because, out of all the religions that have come into contact with the west through colonialism, it’s been impacted the most -​ Hinduism as a culture or religion? -​ It can be more than just a religion -​ The spiritual dominating life in India -​ When they say this, it’s hinting at Indian culture/identity/thought being inseparable from Hinduism; every single thing is religion at its base (NOT TRUE) -​ It's not the only framework in existence -​ Replacing religious with spiritual -​ ‘The dominant character of the Indian mind which has colored all its culture and molded all its thought is the spiritual tendency. Spiritual experience is the foundation of India’s rich cultural history’ (Radhakrishnan 1933) -​ This isn’t to say that religion/spiritual thought doesn’t have a large role, but it’s not the only thing influencing peoples’ lives or shaping the structures that mold how we conceptualize the world or interact with it -​ It’s a fallacy to say it’s the only thing, we can’t limit our examination to only the religious/spiritual -​ Challenged by Roy and Chattopadhyaya -​ This myth of Indian spirituality is openly challenged by a lot of scholars– Indian scholars -​ Not everybody is Hindu -​ What happens to people that are on the periphery? -​ What is this identity linked to? Hinduism as a Religion of Tolerance -​ Ironic for those who experience violence because of it -​ Hinduism as an encompassing religion -​ Incorporating many diverse beliefs and practices -​ ‘Hinduism absorbs everything that enters into it, magic or animism, and raises it to a higher level’ (Radhakrishnan 1927) -​ Making it a little bit better -​ Absorbs/open to accepting other belief structures and cosmologies into a singular reality and raises them to a higher level -​ Adherence, or compliance, to the ‘Hindu code of conduct’ (Sen 1961) -​ Here we see the tolerant aspect become less tolerant -​ An “empire” of religion -​ A perfectly assimilated religion; “we’ll take everything but you’ll become like us” -​ No great tradition just a great many traditions (Van Der Veer 1988) Intrinsic Principles -​ Constant, fundamental core beliefs -​ Karma: reincarnation -​ Your life choices have consequence, the things you choose to do in this life will affect your positionality in future lives -​ Reality of choices extending past mortality, it will affect your next life  -​ Accountability -​ Supernatural/non visible world aspect -​ Caste -​ Strict, stratified social organization -​ Position within society -​ Expectations of you within society, governing of who you can talk to -​ Hierarchical inequality -​ Caste/hierarchy are linked yet separate -​ Caste is like a body: different parts serve different functions -​ Inequality is in difference of role and purpose -​ Based on where you fall in a society, you have different responsibilities and obligations -​ Different, defined, interdependent roles -​ Not about stratification, it’s about responsibilities that need to be fulfilled and the role you play in them -​ Four Hindu paths to salvation (Moksha) -​ Knowledge, action, devotion, yoga -​ Ritual side of the belief system -​ The things you need to do to obtain salvation; moving up through the caste system with your actions -​ Connects the body’s wellbeing to the spiritual wellbeing Sanskrit Hinduism -​ Separation between “high” and “low” theology -​ Priestly tradition = Sanskrit vs. indigenous/folk/local-level hinduism -​ Paradigm of great and little traditions -​ Any type of structured belief system is made up of these two realities -​ Part of the same continuum, but the different manifestations of communication are a mystery -​ Interrelated, not oppositional forces -​ ‘The anthropologist becomes interested in how the great tradition emerges from the culture of the folk and in how the two kinds of cultural traditions and two kinds of community, little and great, inter-relate’ (Singer 1972) -​ Literate (written word) tradition vs context (where they found it) tradition -​ Drawn from different contexts -​ Unhelpful to overstate the unity, but equally unhelpful to overlook that they are often two separate institutions and systems (Fuller 1992) -​ Highlight the complexity to avoid over-simplification -​ Imbedded in a specific social context -​ If religion is unhelpful to look at as a unified entity, and a completely separated entity, then we have to look at it in a specific context -​ There is no singular founder of Hinduism A Founderless Religion -​ We don’t know who founded it, lots of folklore and stories about who started it; historically and academically, there’s no clear answer -​ All attempts ‘to define an enormously complex and amorphous phenomenon like Hinduism have usually ended in failure’ (Srinivas 1952) -​ The context surrounding it becomes super important in understanding how it developed -​ Missing lots of foundational structures to understand why it was formed and what meanings it was conveying in its founding -​ Intentional(?); beginning shrouded in mystery/unknown  -​ ‘“Vasy syncretism”, a veritable melting pot of the myths, beliefs, rites, and spiritual entities of many cultures and communities’ (Morris 20016) -​ Lack of a solidified foundation allows for flexibility to incorporate/amalgamate other beliefs -​ Allows people to come together in a unifying identity and be different from other people -​ We can become unified in our diversity -​ Is centralized theology necessary for a religion? -​ If Hinduism is the religion of the Indian people, should it not include all people who are a part of the artificial construct? -​ This identity of Hinduism is what identifies people as being Indian; using the same kind of idea, taking it and superimposing it into this new state system -​ India isn’t just made up of Hindus, it’s made up of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, etc. -​ Why are Muslims and Christians constitutionally not the same? Why does the current political party in power say the Hindu constitution is not for these people and a push to say these people aren’t Indian? -​ It becomes hypocritical/oppositional to the initial idea of a religion of tolerance; a religion that takes people together and makes them an individual identity -​ Hindu being the Persian word for the country beyond the river Sindhu (Indus) -​ Even in the historical context of this word, it’s a word associated with the identity of people but not their belief structure Karma, Caste, and Social Capital -​ L. Hanifan (1916) via R. Putnam (1995; 2000) -​ Social capital: the network of relationships among people living together which involves the functioning and positionality of social groups through a shared sense of understanding, norms, values, trust, cooperation, and reciprocity -​ Social capital is the value of our choices in exchange for position or influence in society -​ Social value we place on specific actions -​ Theory of moral causation and justification -​ You are given certain fundamental characteristics that are determined by choices in your previous life -​ ‘Those whose conduct here has been good will quickly attain a good birth, the birth of a Brahmnan, the birth of a Kshatriya, or the birth of a Vaishya. But those whose conduct has been evil, will quickly attain an evil birth, the birth of a dog, the birth of a hog, the birth of a [low-caste] Chandala’ (4.10.7) -​ Karma and caste are an extension beyond lived reality -​ “It’s your fault” -​ ‘[A] visible dimension of everyday life in rural India, which is part of everyone’s social and personal identity in a very real sense’ (Fuller 1992) -​ A religious, cultural, and political phenomenon (Quigley 1993) Escape and Salvation -​ Several paths to salvation -​ Knowledge (Jnana) -​ Action (Karma) -​ Devotion (Bhakti) -​ Meditation (Yoga) The Way of Knowledge (Jnana Marga) -​ ‘Even if you be the most sinful of all sinners, yet shall you cross over all sin by the raft of knowledge’ (Bhagavad-Gita 4:36) -​ ‘Real knowledge is knowledge of a metaphysical truth which liberates the soul from the endless cycle of existence– knowledge which is revealed in the texts but which is generally thought to be obtained only by years of submission to rigorous ascetic discipline’ (Parry 1985) The Way of Action (Karma Marga) -​ What you do in life -​ The self is transcended The Way of Devotion (Bhakti Marga) -​ Unconditional surrender to Deity, often connected to love or devotion -​ For those of “inferior birth” -​ Vaisyas, Shudras, and women The Way of Meditation (Yoga Marga) -​ Yoga– to bind, join, or yoke together -​ Control over the mind: 3 distinct functions -​ Sensing organ -​ Intellect -​ Ego Popular Hinduism -​ Worship (Puja) vs. sacrifice (Bali) -​ Brahmin vs. non-Brahmin Review 2 | Nov. 4 *MIDTERM 2 NOV. 6 @ 2:00 PM* Term Break | Nov. 10-16 Tasfia (TA) Islam Lecture: Nation Building Projects– The Case of Bangladesh and the Bengali-Muslim | Nov. 20 The Politicization of Islam in Bangladesh: An Overview -​ Even though Islam is a religion which only follows one book, one god, and one prophet, the practice of the religion varies a lot based on the society in question, social needs, and existing political hierarchies -​ Rising Islamic fundamentalism in Bangladesh has been linked to the politicization of the religion by presidents and autocrats for nation building projects, as a tool of repression and to aid international trade -​ Politicization has led to Islam being constructed as antithetical to pre-existing cultures and democracy itself Recasting of Bengali Identity at Present -​ Bengali culture is cultural heritage of Bengalis living in Bangladesh, and the Indian states if West Bengal and Tripura  -​ Although Bangladesh has a Bengali majority, Bengali culture has been contested and recast recently; Ed: Bindi, Alpona, Pohela Boishakh -​ Anthropologists link this to the creation of the national identity around the Bengali-Muslim identity, and the contestation of the two aspects of the term as a result of national/state ideology The Roots of Bengali Culture -​ Bengali culture has its roots in Hinduism and Buddhism -​ Rule of Buddhist and Hindu dynasties -​ Bangla originates from Sanskrit, which is the foundational language of Hindu and Buddhist scripture -​ Bengali literature, plays, and folktale affected by Dharmic religions -​ Baul music influenced by both Islam and Hinduism -​ Classical dance -​ Conversion to Islam after Delhi Sunate: egalitarianism + incentives -​ The idea of secularism was attached to Bangladeshi Bengaliness during the liberation war with Pakistan The Contradiction -​ Bangladeshi nationalism excludes religious, ethnic, and linguistic minorities and structures itself around the Bengali-Muslim majority -​ Bengali culture has its roots in Hinduism and Buddhism, while also being constructed as secular in the Bangladeshi context -​ The use of Islam as a national identity marker contradicts a culture rooted in the above -​ The point of focus differentiates between Bengaliness and Islam over time, competing rather than being in a state of coexistence (Siddiqi 2006) -​ Obstructs Islam’s ability to adapt to Bengali culture Colonialism -​ Coexistence -​ Bengali muslims and hindus previously coexisted as a result of shared culture present in the Bengal/ganges delta -​ Divide & conquer -​ British colonial policies utilized land reforms, educational policies, and religious divides in electorates to create class hierarchies and political divides along religious lines in the region -​ Partition -​ Happened along muslim-hindu divides -​ Communal violence -​ Muslim/Pakistan-Hindu India -​ Bengali-Muslims differentiated themselves based on religion, self-induced stereotypes -​ This resulted in Islam coming into focus over Bengaliness Liberation: The Outbidding of Bengaliness -​ Partition resulted in Pakistan having two provinces: East Pakistan/Bangladesh and West Pakistan/present-day Pakistan -​ Didn’t favor East Pakistan/Bangladesh -​ Economic disparity -​ Lack of political and administrative presentation -​ Obstructed Bangla from becoming an administrative language -​ Bengaliness was emphasized as an identity marker; liberation war articulated as a struggle for a secular state based on shared Bengali identity superseding religious identity  -​ Helped garner support from religious minorities Military Regime: Revaluations of Bengaliness -​ Not long after Independence, Bangladesh went through a long period of military dictatorships, Islam politicized to garner support and control, and improve trade relations -​ Secularism taken out of constitution, Islam made national religion -​ Religion used to control movements and state criticism -​ Bangladeshi nationalism was forged to be Islamic nationalism -​ Presidents started to monitor whether or not Bengali practices were “Unislamic”: Ershad and Alpona -​ Middle Eastern influence: -​ The need to please Middle eastern states for economic benefits resulted in revaluation of bengali practices, state policy 1990s-Present -​ Subsequent parties either continued to forge Bangladeshi nationalism as Islamic nationalism, or entertained non-secularism -​ Religious values used to garner conservative support -​ Islamic political parties gained more power -​ Civil society didn’t take on moderating roles -​ Islam used to suppress movements against existing norms and the state -​ The forging of Bangladeshi nationalism as a constant struggle between bengaliness and islam depending on the needs of the party in power/nation building project resulted in Islam becoming a threat to both Bengali and minority culture, secularism, and democracy itself -​ Alpona, Pohela Boishakh, bindi does have origins in aspects of Bengali culture that’s non-Islamic, but it just didn’t matter before Christianity and Religion in Africa | Nov. 18- Dec. 2 Readings: -​ Morris; chapter 5 👍 -​ Daugherty (recommended) -​ Turpin (recommended) Christianity I -​ ‘Obvious or known phenomenon’ (Cannell 2009) -​ Decisive to the formation of modern western understanding (Mauss 1985) -​ Central to the creation of social imagination (Durkheim 2008; Weber & Kalberg 2011)