Anthropological theologies: Engagements and encounters

Abstract

In a ground-breaking article Joel Robbins analysed what he characterises as the 'awkward' relationship between anthropology and theology and invited greater anthropological engagement with its disciplinary cousin. This Special Issue responds to this provocation by using Robbins' argument as a bouncing board for wide-ranging forays into a common set of concerns. In investigating anthropological theologies the collection critically attends to the kinds of engagements and encounters that already take place and also lays out future agendas for further interactions. We call for an anthropology that is open to provisional, dialogic and potentially transformative interactions across diverse theologies and suggest that such a move will help shed light on the possibilities of re-modelling the practice of anthropology. AN AWKWARD RELATIONSHIPIn a ground-breaking article Robbins (2006) invites consideration of 'what is or should be the relationship between anthropology and theology?' The fact that the question, as Robbins notes, has hardly ever been asked by anthropologists says something that cuts to the core of the discipline. Indeed, while questions of our location vis-a-vis 'neighbouring' disciplines such as sociology and cultural studies have long haunted anthropology, theology has hardly ever been considered part of our neighbourhood. Direct and explicit discussion of theology has rarely been considered an urgent or necessary task. This has been the case even when theological theories clearly intersect with central anthropological domains of enquiry. In asking for descriptive and normative enquiries into this relationship, Robbins disturbs the status quo and invites critical examination of our conspicuous and assiduous avoidance of this disciplinary cousin.But more than being simply a matter of neglect, the relationship between theology and anthropology (at least from the anthropologists' side) is characterised by deep unease. Probing this discomfort, Robbins suggests that anthropologists have had a thoroughly 'awkward' relationship with theology. This stems from the fact that theology is a 'committed discipline', whereas anthropology, he argues, is not. Perhaps more

The alchemy of life: Magic, anthropology and human nature in a Pagan theology

“…Problems of social scientific knowledge about spirits, magic and witchcraft—Hirst and Woolley's presumed ‘we’ of ‘modern consciousness’ who find claims of witchcraft ‘preposterous’; Moore and Sanders’ description of British people who have their tarot cards read as ‘gullible’; Turner's recognition that she had been operating under an unstated understanding that there was a ‘white’ side of the divide, thereby denying coevalness to her interlocutors—each reflects in different ways these long, contested historical processes of the constitution of officially sanctioned European knowledge as divested of ‘superstition’. This same framing resonates with the marginalisation of specifically Christian beliefs among Anglo–American anthropologists discussed by Fountain (). Notwithstanding anthropology's enduring and often admirable tradition of seeking to engage with the beliefs of colonised ‘others’, the excision of ‘superstition’ from sanctioned European knowledge is reflected in the careful bracketing of magical knowledge in many ethnographic accounts, in the long debates about the rationality of magical beliefs and in the tendency to reduce ideas around magic and spirits to social terms.…”

Durkheim, Freud and I in Aboriginal Australia, or should Anthropology contain theology?

“…While religion may be ‘recognized and protected’ in social theory, Milbank suggests it is ‘kept rigorously behind the bounds of the possibility of empirical understanding’ and is thus ‘at variance with the perspectives of many traditional religions’. In other words, policing the sublime not only ‘misconjugates human existence’, it ‘coincides with the actual operations of secular society’, which either privatises faith or gives it an occasional public presence as a counterweight to ‘instrumental rationality’ (: 106; and see Fountain , for further details). Like Stanner, Milbank believes that this accounting of religion should be ‘opposed in the name of something “other” ’ (: 140).…”

Islam and freedom of religion: Anthropology, theology and clashes of universalisms in contemporary Malaysia

“…However, anthropology has always been adept at being reflexive about its histories and writing its way through the memory of its colonial, enlightenment and theological past. Fountain () makes a case for one such attempt to think and write our way into a post‐secular anthropology and re‐engage encounters with the theological.…”

“…In this article I ask whether there was a clash between two universalisms, that of human rights and Islam, or whether there was a clash within Islamic theology. Here, I follow Lau and Fountain (, see the introduction to this issue) in not wanting to provide or engage in a singular definition of what (Islamic) theology entails (see below). Theology, as a productive arena for anthropologists, must be engaged as a lived experience.…”

“…Theology, as a productive arena for anthropologists, must be engaged as a lived experience. As Lau and Fountain () argue: ‘This necessitates, at the very least, an acknowledgement that theologians may “get some things right” about the way the world is and about effective and ethical means of engaging with it’. This paper will engage this broad definition and call to engage theology and theological claims.…”