Religion and Ethnicity as Located and Localized

Peoplehood and the Orthodox person: a view from central Serbia

“…Peoplehood is not potentially extrinsic to the liturgical experience – as in analyses which recoil at the idea that ‘religion’ could be imbued with a ‘national’ element – it is one of its assumed, organizational categories. In overly focusing on state‐centric religious nationalism, we risk missing a sense of relational and situated belonging (Østebø 2020: 562) which people ascribe to ‘natural‐cultural landscapes’ (Østebø 2020: 549).…”

“…Friedland 2001; 2011) obscures understandings of belonging to an ethno‐moral collectivity which may be imagined as preceding, opposing, and sometimes reaching beyond the secular state. The widespread attention to how the state forges religious identities (which it undoubtedly does) has been at the expense of appreciating embodied, located forms of belonging (Østebø 2020: 563), and the fact that what motivates people to live liturgically is not state infrastructure.…”

“…In the Greek Orthodox context, Michael Herzfeld pushes for ‘a very different understanding of the relationship among personhood, religion, and national identity’ (2002: 201) to ones with which we may be more familiar in some Protestant settings in the West. In that spirit, I move beyond reading Orthodox liturgical life through the distinct analytical categories of ‘religion’ and ‘nation’ (see Østebø 2020: 546), with their particular bias and baggage. Rather, I outline how understanding oneself as an Orthodox person who is part of a people ( narod ) simultaneously evokes extended kinship ties and the (Christian) cosmos.…”

“…Miroljub's riposte begs consideration. Whilst I am not making a primordialist argument (reifying nationalist claims about ‘organic’ proto‐national communities), it is also true that intensely constructivist approaches miss how – as Miroljub cautioned – collective identities are experienced as real, embedded in social relations in the material world (Østebø 2020: 547; also Kharkhordin 2005: 100). As such, I like Terje Østebø’s invitation to think of religious and ethnic identities as primary , not primordial (2020: 548).…”