Confessional anthropology

Abstract

Drawing on my experience of a Muslim version of exorcism in urban Macedonia, this article continues a methodological discussion of the implications of being an atheist anthropologist when researching religion, a situation known as 'methodological atheism'. Methodological atheism is often linked to the problem of suspending one's intellectual disregard of people's religions as delusions. This article will argue instead that there are barriers to participation in religious rituals that are not covered by questions of disbelief. The notion of 'dispositional atheism' is discussed against the backdrop of the anxieties, uncertainties, and inhibitions experienced by an atheist anthropologist caught up in a moment of religious intensity."If one has no faith, is there any reason why one should be interested?" (Berger 2004: 1). This question springs from two common assumptions-that theology is interesting only for believers, while anthropology is inevitably a non-theistic discipline that consists of secular endeavors of non-believers to "explain [religion] away" (Binsbergen 1991: 336). However, within theology, conceptualized as an established academic field, there are uncertainties as to whether theology is indeed a confessional discipline that attracts only religious people (Bowie 1998). Scholars have been asking if, as an exercise in philosophical thinking, theologies can be understood across the faith-non-faith divide. For example, can an atheist study theology (Cush 2009)? Is a theologian ill-equipped to undertake a non-confessional study of religion (Yong 2012: 18)? These concerns about subjective religiosity or the non-religion of a researcher are analogous to the questions raised in anthropology about its methodological and epistemological foundations as a secular social science (Bielo 2014: 7). So, is anthropology of religion a confessional discipline of a kind? Does an anthropologist have to 'believe' to carry out research among seriously religious people? This article Confessional Anthropology | 115 revisits the debates about how the atheism of anthropology and of anthropologists enables or impedes ethnographic research and the production of anthropological knowledge.

At the Edge of the Sensible: Cultivating Doubt in Radically Engaged Anthropology and Spirituality

“…Radically engaged anthropologists often have experiences interlocutors would deem spiritual (e.g., Desjarlais 1992;Luhrmann 2010;Turner 1992b). Such experiences inadvertently present the anthropologist with the question of the ontological status of spiritual phenomena; both within the anthropological discipline and in the field, the anthropologist's position on this matter often becomes associated with issues of authority (Ewing 1994;Goulet and Miller 2007;Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015). Anthropological views roughly divide between those who argue that belief potentially undermines anthropological knowledge (e.g., Fortes 1987;Gell 1999) and those who hold that without believing in what interlocutors deem true and real, the anthropologist may miss out on significant elements of these people's worlds (e.g., Ewing 1994;Goulet and Miller 2007;Turner 1992aTurner , 1992bTurner , 2003Turner , 2006.…”

“…While the literature on spiritual and religious communities increasingly fills with descriptions of doubt (e.g., Hanks 2016; Oustinova‐Stjepanovic 2015; Pelkmans 2013), doubt has long held a conspicuously shadowy position in accounts of how the anthropologist comes to understand spiritual phenomena. Instead, doubt is often presented as a cultural artifact from another world: that of science, secular or differently religious societies (e.g., Earle 2007; Turner 1992b)—a disposition of disbelief one must temporarily move beyond by learning the proper cultural sensibilities to craft valid analyses (e.g., Klin‐Oron 2015; Knibbe and Droogers 2011).…”

“…Part of this trend, anthropologists employing “radically engaged” methodologies have played a significant part in showing how people's transformative and spiritual experiences do not arise out of thin air and cannot be tied to questions of belief alone but, rather, are conditioned by specific cultural sensibilities (e.g., Desjarlais 1992; Luhrmann 1989). Anthropological work has often focused on the question of belief when exploring spiritual and religious communities (Oustinova‐Stjepanovic 2015) and, in the preoccupation with belief, has approached the aspect of experience as a taken‐for‐granted ability of people in such communities (Luhrmann and Morgain 2012, 359–362). In contrast, radically engaged anthropologists have since the 1980s been pivotal in showing that having spiritual experiences requires a learning process that encompasses the entire body (e.g., Desjarlais 1992; Luhrmann 1989).…”

“…More broadly speaking, by staying with the trouble of doubt—in fieldwork, analysis, and writing—doubt may become a transformative experience that destabilizes both ontological certainty and the alleged analytical invalidity of the radically engaged anthropologist. While radical engagement cannot and should not be expected of every anthropologist (Luhrmann 2010), in any field (Oustinova‐Stjepanovic 2015) maybe doubt could? My argument then is a plea for cultivating doubt as an enduring anthropological disposition.…”

Of agency, Allah, and authority: the making of a divine trial among Muslims with same‐sex attraction in Indonesia

“…I am well aware that many anthropologists and ethnographers are religious and pious, and the categories of 'scholar' and 'pious' should not be presented as if they were mutually exclusive. However, in light of scholarly discussions on methodological atheism(Bialecki 2014;Lemons 2018;Oustinova-Stjepanovic 2015), I think that such a distinction can be retained for analytical purposes.4 Aside from Ibn Taymiyya's works and other specific Islamic exegeses pertaining to same-sex sexuality, the idea of divine test and self-sacrifice -especially in relation to one's relations with other people -is apparent in the Islamic epistemic tradition. The narrative of the Prophet Abraham, or Ibrahim, for instance, demonstrates that the Prophet had to sacrifice his own son to follow God's command (seeLjamai 2017).…”