W4C1: religion and agency

Question 1

Anthropology of religion

Different disciplines had different things to say about religion, but what distinguishes the anthropology of religion?

Answer 1

• Holistic approach
• Claims to be at least to some extent universalistic, addresses ethnocentric biases
• Studies religion ethnographically, getting up close and personal
• Comparative
• Politically engaged

Question 2

Oldest, most influential definition of religion

Answer 2

“the belief in supernatural beings” (Eriksen, 2023, p. 198)

• Problematic: evolutionism -> societies go through specific phases of evolution.
• Not all religions focus on ‘beings’
• Puts emphasis on belief
• Other issue: who gets to decide what is a supernatural being

Question 3

Definition of religion by Durkheim:

Answer 3

Religion entails society’s worship of itself (Eriksen, p. 198)

• Functionalist: there is a reason why people belief, practice religion. And it is because it helps social cohesion, which you need in a society.
• Doesn’t take religion seriously

Question 4

Definition of religion by Geertz:

Answer 4

a (1) system of symbols which (2) establish powerful, pervasive, and long-lasting moods a and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic (Geertz; 1973, 90)

• Instead of looking at the social functions of religion, we ought to explore what religion means to people. How it helps to make sense of the world.
• Geertz compares system (constellations) of symbols which tell us something about the order of things to our DNA. They offer a blueprint for life, symbols give the language and the options available to relate to the cosmos. One very big difference: genes are intrinsic, symbols are always extrinsic. Society product the symbols, they are out there.

Question 5

Definition of religion by Asad:

Answer 5

there cannot be a universal definition of religion. Not only because its consituent elements and relationships are historically specific, but because that definition is itself the historical product of discursive processes

• Concept of religion by Geertz is a product of its time, developing the idea of natural religion -> disconnects it from law, politics and power. This abstract concept of natural religion emerges in a time and place in which we also see the rise of the modern nation state, no coincidence.
• But: claims about truth are never free of power. Geertz points to symbols as dimensions where religious truth is created. Asad, however, points at power
• Saint Augustine: there is always a level of agency. Sometimes disciplining through outside sources, sometimes self-disciplining. Religious practices are forms of disciplining the body into believing certain religious truths
  Idea by Arestotle: bodily practice cultivates inner beliefs.
• Completely opposite to what Geertz says, who puts it in symbolic systems out there. Asad says: believing is hard work, we discipline ourselves.

Question 6

So what do we do as anthropologists when we study religion these days?

Answer 6

• Neither fully subjective nor fully objective phenomena
• Religious worlds are real, vivid and significant to those who construct and inhabit them
• Tries to render those realities for others, in their sensory richness, philosophic depth, emotional range and moral complexity