In recent years, the “material turn” has gained prominence in the humanities and social sciences, and it has also stimulated a shift toward a rediscovery of materiality in the scientific study of religion\s. The material turn aims to dissolve conventional dichotomies and, by emphasizing the concept of assemblage, insists that humans and things are fundamentally co-constitutive. This “New Materialism” addresses ontological alterity, and it radically decenters static anthropocentric arrangements and the position of the human subject as such. The insider–outsider distinction, however, as well as the emic–etic categorization, are based on fundamental dichotomies between the researcher and the researched, and between descriptive and analytical understandings of human beings. This article discusses the possibility and significance of a non-anthropocentric approach to religion, and examines to what extent it is analytically helpful to apply the insider–outsider and emic–etic distinctions while pursuing the goal of dissolving hierarchical and binary thinking. It furthermore argues that these issues can be properly answered only with reference to their methodological implications.
The Philippines are the only predominantly Christian nation in Southeast Asia. The tradition of the passion of Christ is supposed to be the centre of Philippine religiousness and the fascination with the suffering, battered and dead Christ can be regarded as a characteristic feature of Philippine lowland society. The most spectacular expressions of the so-called Philippine 'Calvary Catholicism' are flagellation and crucifixion. In 1996–1998, the author studied Philippine passion rituals in the village of Kapitangan. During the Holy Week, thousands of people mostly from Manila visit the church and observe the spectacle of ritual crucifixions on Good Friday in the churchyard. In Kapitangan, mostly women are nailed to the cross, which is, however, is not an act of volition. They act under directions 'from above', possessed by Sto. Niño or Jesus Nazareno. All of them are (faith-)healers. All of them are founders of a religious movement. In this article, the author uses Ernst Troeltsch's typology — church, sect, mysticism — as a tool to raise questions about ritual crucifixion as a focus of community and collective identity formation, both on the local and national level of society. Troeltsch's typology sheds light on the delicate relation between the Philippine 'official' church and practices of the so-called 'folk-Catholicism'. It illuminates motives and aims of the healers, who are called 'new mystics' by some scholars, and the sense of belonging of their followers. It also reveals discourses of consent and dissent among the spectators and general public, provoked by that literal re-enactment of Jesus' death.
Material Culture and (Forced) Migration argues that materiality is a fundamental dimension of migration. During journeys of migration, people take things with them, or they lose, find and engage things along the way. Movements themselves are framed by objects such as borders, passports, tents, camp infrastructures, boats and mobile phones. This volume brings together chapters that are based on research into a broad range of movements – from the study of forced migration and displacement to the analysis of retirement migration. What ties the chapters together is the perspective of material culture and an understanding of materiality that does not reduce objects to mere symbols. Centring on four interconnected themes – temporality and materiality, methods of object-based migration research, the affective capacities of objects, and the engagement of things in place-making practices – the volume provides a material culture perspective for migration scholars around the globe, representing disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, contemporary archaeology, curatorial studies, history and human geography. The ethnographic nature of the chapters and the focus on everyday objects and practices will appeal to all those interested in the broader conditions and tangible experiences of migration.
Philippine Catholicism is usually seen as a variant of a non-European Christianity, which was formerly introduced by Spanish missionaries and colonizers into the Philippine Archipelago. Philippine passion rituals, especially self-flagellation and rites of crucifixion, are commonly interpreted as bizarre phenomena of a pre-modern folk-religiosity or archaic survivals of ‘our’ past, or as a post-colonial mimicry of European religious history. The perspective on Philippine Christianity is always governed by European discourses, whether religious, scientific, or common sense. This paper is an attempt to question dichotomies such as ‘European’ and ‘non-European,’ ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern,’ ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic,’ etc. In the study of religion such dichotomies, I argue, create problems of conceptualizing diversity within one religious tradition and behind such distinctions lurks the implicit self-perception of the West of being exemplary ‘modern.’ I use Philippine passion rituals as a hermeneutic challenge. Crucifixions are analyzed as media events and from the actor’s perspective, by historicizing the missionary encounter, and by scrutinizing concepts such as ‘syncretism’ and ‘identity.’ ‘Translation’ and the ‘histoire croisée’ approach are proposed as helpful analytical tools for the study of Christianity.
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