Culture, Education, Anthropology

Varenne, Hervé

doi:10.1111/j.1548-1492.2008.00027.x

Cited by 29 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…However, religious pedagogical projects are inevitably constrained and shaped by relations of power, patterns of human practice, and the reality that all forms of authority or hegemony must respond to the reality of ongoing cultural transformations (Asad ). Ultimately, this issue illustrates what Hervé Varenne has termed “the radical impossibility of reproduction” (:363).…”

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confidence: 90%

Introduction to Special Issue: Ethnographies of Religious Education

Adely

Seale‐Collazo

2013

Anthropology & Edu Quarterly

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The study of religion has long been central to scholarly efforts to understand diverse cultures, human practice, and meaning making. This issue highlights recent anthropological research on religious education in a multitude of spaces and within a range of faith experiences. Through rich ethnographic explorations, authors illuminate the engagement of a diverse subset of actors in religious education paying particular attention to pedagogical methods and practices, with important contributions to theories about teaching, learning, and subjectivity. [religion, pedagogy, Islam, Christianity, Judaism] Many of the contemporary political struggles surrounding secularism, the role of religion in public life, and "shared" values are, at their core, pedagogical-concerned with the authorization, preservation, and transmission of knowledge, both religious and seemingly secular. In the face of the cultural transformations wrought by consumerism, and accelerated by communications technology and global mass media, religious leaders and educational institutions are today often concerned with how to provide members of their communities with the moral tools needed to navigate such changes while preserving the essence of their religious teachings. 1 Younger community members are seen as particularly vulnerable to the sway and influence of such transformations; as such, they are frequently the object of these pedagogical efforts. Many pedagogical projects seek to protect youth from the moral corruption that some read into new social and cultural phenomena (Seale-Collazo and Vicini, in this issue; Adely 2012). At the same time, some religious organizations and leaders (official or self-appointed) have also worked to harness new technologies in their efforts to transmit religious knowledge and solidify religious commitments (e.g., Starrett 1995).Efforts to stem the tide of societal changes, or at least to rein in their influence are, of course, not singularly the concern of religious entities; efforts to control, navigate, and orchestrate cultural transformations drive most, if not all, pedagogical projects. Concern with young people's values and commitments (or lack thereof) has long been part and parcel of generational struggles. The fear of losing control-and concomitant efforts to (re)assert authority, either by rejecting change or by working to shape its meaning-are inextricably bound up with teaching and learning processes.This special issue of the Anthropology & Education Quarterly highlights emergent issues in recent anthropological research, in several spaces and places in which religious education is underway. The papers in this issue reflect some of the diversity of religious experience, pedagogies, and practices found around the globe and in a range of faith experiences within Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In these papers, we are introduced to a diverse subset of actors engaged in religious education: from individuals seeking spiritual enlightenment online, to a monarchy and its attendant state bureaucracy, which ...

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confidence: 90%

Introduction to Special Issue: Ethnographies of Religious Education

Adely

Seale‐Collazo

2013

Anthropology & Edu Quarterly

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“…Researchers of education in Muslim settings should not miss the affinity between Starrett's () perspective on religious training and Hervé Varenne's () broader criticism of the conservatism of theories of education engrained in our disciplinary history. According to Varenne, not only the anthropology of education but our whole anthropological heritage has privileged a view of pedagogy as more or less successful enculturation.…”

Section: Learning As Process: On Morality and Subjectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Broadening the spectrum to address the anthropology of education, a focus on the experience of an Islamic studies course and the wider debates it engenders allows us to challenge prior theoretical exaggeration about processes of subjectivation. I assert that an emphasis on the “practical articulation” (Hammoudi :51) people have with institutions in concrete situations helps us see learning as inherently processual and thus avoid the conservatism engrained in our disciplinary theorization of education (a conservatism strongly contested by Varenne ). This analytical shift considers paradox, irony, and contingency as integral to theories of learning, be it religious or not.…”

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confidence: 99%

Inheritance, Heritage, and the Disinherited: Ambiguities of Religious Pedagogy in the Moroccan Public School

Boutieri

2013

Anthropology & Edu Quarterly

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This article investigates how Moroccan public high-school students experience religious pedagogy. Probing the linguistic ideology that underpins their religious training, the article exposes the ambiguities inherent in educational Arabization, a project set on safeguarding the state's sacredness while mediating an agenda of indigenous modernization. Student skepticism toward the state's moral authority indicates that religious pedagogy must be explored through the lenses of process and approximation with an attention to paradoxes, ironies, and unanticipated outcomes. [religious pedagogy, language ideology, state, Islam]

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“…1 1 The term American references the collective Americas (North, Central, and South), but is often used to reference the United States. Following Varenne's (2008) example, I enclosed the term in quotation marks the first time I used it to indicate it as a “contentious” term, and also to acknowledge there are “words we cannot escape but cannot take as given” (p. 366). Moreover, like Dolby (2004), I consider the term American to be a fluid and globalized social construction, often differentiated from the term United States that references a state formation (e.g., government, geographic territory). …”

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confidence: 99%

“We’re Sort of Imposters”: Negotiating Identity at Home and Abroad

Jewett

2010

Curriculum Inquiry

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In this article, I argue that through study abroad programming, university students engage in relational encounters between self (home culture) and other (host culture)-twinned concepts that constitute and are constituted by each other. Moreover, I assert that these encounters take place not only during the students' time abroad, but also well before it as students produce and consume various identities through performances, representations, and discourses. These practices and processes at home shape the ways in which students create meanings abroad. In making these claims, I look closely at students' experiences in a short-term study abroad program to Ireland and Northern Ireland. I assert that it was through the students' constructions of Irishness as commodities, claims, and contestations that they encountered their Americanness. The qualitative data for this study were collected in the mid-2000s, and include focus group transcripts, journals, photo-reflections, as well as related program and course documents.

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Culture, Education, Anthropology

Cited by 29 publications

References 11 publications

Introduction to Special Issue: Ethnographies of Religious Education

Introduction to Special Issue: Ethnographies of Religious Education

Inheritance, Heritage, and the Disinherited: Ambiguities of Religious Pedagogy in the Moroccan Public School

“We’re Sort of Imposters”: Negotiating Identity at Home and Abroad

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