Demanding Deities and Reluctant Devotees: Belief and Unbelief in the Trinidadian Orisa Movement

Glazier, Stephen D.

doi:10.3167/sa.2008.520102

Cited by 10 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 3 publications

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“…For example, clapping one's hands might be experienced as less irksome than saying "amen" or speaking in tongues (Blanes 2006: 230). Another anthropologist might remain deliberately detached from more radical forms of participation because rituals are expensive or time-consuming (Glazier 2008). During her fieldwork in a missionizing Buddhist temple in Taiwan, Hillary Crane (2014: 21) resisted participating in rituals that would signal her conversion and full membership in that religious community; she crawled on her knees as a pilgrim but would not take her vows.…”

Section: Suspension Of Disbelief and Performancementioning

confidence: 97%

Confessional anthropology

Oustinova-Stjepanovic¹

2015

Social Analysis

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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.

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Section: Suspension Of Disbelief and Performancementioning

confidence: 97%

Confessional anthropology

Oustinova-Stjepanovic¹

2015

Social Analysis

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Introduction

2017

Spiritual Citizenship

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Pathways to Spiritual Citizenship "You will travel widely, all over the globe." I heard these words with a disbelief that must have shown on my face. "Really, this is what Ifá says," the babalawo said in a thick Nigerian accent. In that moment I didn't know who or what a babalawo was or what Ifá was. I just knew that they were wrong. I had little more than the change in my pocket to my name, and none that I could spare. I had no official identification let alone a passport. I could barely afford to get a ticket to ride the train across the Bay, from Oakland to San Francisco. "Who do you think you are?" Those were the words that went through my head. And I am sure they were visible on my face. Across from me the Ifá priest looked at me with a kind and knowing appraisal. He had seen this before with other clients. And having divined for me, he had seen aspects of my destiny. Looking down at the mat, he told me, "Ògún is very important for you." I wrote "Oggum" in my notes, a misspelling that reflected my lack of knowledge. I had never heard that word before. And of the many ways to spell Ogun in the diaspora, that is not one of them. Only a few weeks earlier I had been at work when Oshun, the Yorùbá Orìsà of creativity, fresh water, and women's power, had manifested (see appendix II). In the middle of the day she had possessed one of her priests in a pagan bookstore. Oshun claimed me as her own that day, "Save her," she commanded, "She's mine." That mandate had brought me to a small apartment above a garage in Oakland where I sat across from a Nigerian

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The Spirit of Black Power

2017

Spiritual Citizenship

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Demanding Deities and Reluctant Devotees: Belief and Unbelief in the Trinidadian Orisa Movement

Cited by 10 publications

References 3 publications

Confessional anthropology

Confessional anthropology

Introduction

The Spirit of Black Power

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