Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion
Following a longstanding Christian missionary tradition (Douglas 1984), early anthropologists classified some perplexing non-Western understandings of reality as “religious beliefs” and related practices as rituals. Michael Bull’s and Jon Mitchell’s edited volume: Ritual, Performance and the Senses...
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| Format: | Journal article |
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Wiley
2017
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| _version_ | 1797089528920408064 |
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| author | Giraldo Herrera, C |
| author_facet | Giraldo Herrera, C |
| author_sort | Giraldo Herrera, C |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | Following a longstanding Christian missionary tradition (Douglas 1984), early anthropologists classified some perplexing non-Western understandings of reality as “religious beliefs” and related practices as rituals. Michael Bull’s and Jon Mitchell’s edited volume: Ritual, Performance and the Senses revise Durkheimian and Turnerian understanding of ritual as the means of transmission of religion, processes in which participants develop an aroused sense of belonging to a community and are highly receptive to symbolism, allowing them to share beliefs. It questions the semantic interpretations of ritual and the parallel but complementary line of enquiry assumed by cognitive sciences, which most frequently constricted their enquiries into religion to the examination of evolutionary – naturalistic – explanations of “religious beliefs” that appear implausible under Western humanist understandings of reality. Cognitive explanations remain markedly mentalist and presume the universality of an ethnocentric understanding of reality. However, much of what our predecessors classified as strange beliefs, for their interlocutors was not a matter of faith, rooted in uncertainty, but knowledge pertaining and appropriate to the description and understanding of their reality, of the world in which they dwelt. The ontological turn advocates for a humbler anthropology, which acknowledges the reality of the others as such, before its own interpretations. If the statements of the other are perplexing it is our understanding that has to be reformulated and refined. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:05:24Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:b256e00b-89bb-448c-981d-fd06c8e5cdc5 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T03:05:24Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:b256e00b-89bb-448c-981d-fd06c8e5cdc52022-03-27T04:11:01ZReligion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religionJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:b256e00b-89bb-448c-981d-fd06c8e5cdc5Symplectic Elements at OxfordWiley2017Giraldo Herrera, CFollowing a longstanding Christian missionary tradition (Douglas 1984), early anthropologists classified some perplexing non-Western understandings of reality as “religious beliefs” and related practices as rituals. Michael Bull’s and Jon Mitchell’s edited volume: Ritual, Performance and the Senses revise Durkheimian and Turnerian understanding of ritual as the means of transmission of religion, processes in which participants develop an aroused sense of belonging to a community and are highly receptive to symbolism, allowing them to share beliefs. It questions the semantic interpretations of ritual and the parallel but complementary line of enquiry assumed by cognitive sciences, which most frequently constricted their enquiries into religion to the examination of evolutionary – naturalistic – explanations of “religious beliefs” that appear implausible under Western humanist understandings of reality. Cognitive explanations remain markedly mentalist and presume the universality of an ethnocentric understanding of reality. However, much of what our predecessors classified as strange beliefs, for their interlocutors was not a matter of faith, rooted in uncertainty, but knowledge pertaining and appropriate to the description and understanding of their reality, of the world in which they dwelt. The ontological turn advocates for a humbler anthropology, which acknowledges the reality of the others as such, before its own interpretations. If the statements of the other are perplexing it is our understanding that has to be reformulated and refined. |
| spellingShingle | Giraldo Herrera, C Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title | Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title_full | Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title_fullStr | Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title_full_unstemmed | Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title_short | Religion beyond belief, shamanism beyond religion |
| title_sort | religion beyond belief shamanism beyond religion |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT giraldoherrerac religionbeyondbeliefshamanismbeyondreligion |