On two modalities of our secularity: anthropology’s immanent frames
How have anthropologists related to extraordinary or supernatural phenomena (the transcendent) in disciplinary definitions of religion and in the practice of social analysis? This text argues that the discipline’s engagement with alterities that dispute our ontological secular conceptions makes evid...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2021
|
| In: |
Religion
Year: 2021, Volume: 51, Issue: 4, Pages: 533-550 |
| Further subjects: | B
Secularity
B Epistemology B Transcendence B Media B Supernatural B Immanence |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | How have anthropologists related to extraordinary or supernatural phenomena (the transcendent) in disciplinary definitions of religion and in the practice of social analysis? This text argues that the discipline’s engagement with alterities that dispute our ontological secular conceptions makes evident its form of knowledge production. The central claim is that anthropology’s secularity is not fixed and should be discussed as part of a historical process. I propose to analyse two modalities of secularity, which I term ‘extinction’ and ‘captivity’. A second claim is that despite their differences, both modalities (re)produce to its academic and Euro-American audience anthropology’s own secularity as a natural human condition. A third claim is that by recognising the characteristics of our discipline’s secularity we may start to speak of a plurality of secular ontologies as a way to register the multiplicity of ‘worldliness’ that traditions and individuals may assume or call for. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1096-1151 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2021.1971497 |