Lecture 3 Flashcards
Birgit Meyer (2012) Basic ideas of the material approach
Collapsing of hierarchy mental / material
Focus on practice rather than belief in the transcendent
Religion as mediation (sensational forms) = god uses the material world in order to convey divine presence to embodied human beings
Fabrication of the sacred (sacralisation)
Practices - acts involving people - bodies, objects, texts, etc.
= media through with religion becomes tangible present
Starting point of Material Approach
Religion becomes concrete / palpable through people, their practices, use of things, and is part / parcel of power structures
Meyer’s critical revision of mentalistic approaches of religion:
Inward oriented religion;
ex. concepts, belief, ideas, seen as the highest form
= link to evolutionism
Outward manifestation;
ex. ritual
= seen as secondary, primitive, inferior
Protestant bias
Max Weber; meaning is an essence / core of religion
William James; religious experience is private
= religion is not social it cannot be studied as an interaction between an individual and their surroundings
religion is not a vehicle but a generator of meaning
Frontier zones (‘the Wild West’)
culturally / religiously diverse area –> clash and confrontation regarding religion
contact between colonising power / indigenous population
frontier zones from the result of European expansion
Fetish
Fetish as a frontier object
= the respect that objects are believed to have supernatural / magical powers
Fetish as an idol
Evolutionist order - fetish as the lowest form of religion
Ethnocentric view - materialistic religious object as primitive
= view labeled by colonising powers
Ewe religion
God is manifested through material and practical interactions
= dancing, carving of figure, spitting fire, etc
= clothing, church building
(Portuguese) missionaries view on fetishism
Fetishism (devilish) as objects are human made - yet seen to have a life of its own
= idol worship (worshipping devil)
= voodoo
