Personal knowledge and beyond : reshaping the ethnography of religion / edited by James V. Spickard, J. Shawn Landres, Meredith B. McGuire.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Spickard, James V.

Landres, J. Shawn.

McGuire, Meredith B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion--Methodology.

Religion.

Ethnology--Methodology.

Ethnology.

Ethnology--Religious aspects.

Physical Description:

ix, 284 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New York University Press, [2002]

Summary:

Over the last decade the sociology of religion and religious studies have experienced a surge of ethnographic research. Scholars now use ethnography, as anthropologists have long done, as a valued source of knowledge from which they draw their pictures of the religious world. Yet, many researchers of religion have yet to grapple with the issues that are changing anthropologists' use of the method. Personal Knowledge and Beyond provides an overview of recent debates while also pushing them in new directions. In addition, it offers a critique of some of anthropology's reigning conceptualizations.

Contents:

Introduction: Whither Ethnography? Transforming the Social-Scientific Study of Religion / James V. Spickard, J. Shawn Landres 1

Part I Being an Ethnographer

1 Truth, Subjectivity, and Ethnographic Research / Lynn Davidman 17

2 From the Heart of My Laptop: Personal Passion and Research on Violence against Women / Nancy Nason-Clark 27

3 Walking between the Worlds: Permeable Boundaries, Ambiguous Identities / Mary Jo Neitz 33

4 Dancing on the Fence: Researching Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Christians / Melissa M. Wilcox 47

Part II Doing Ethnography

5 Between the Living and the Dead: Fieldwork, History, and the Interpreter's Position / Thomas A. Tweed 63

6 "But Are They Really Christian?" Contesting Knowledge and Identity in and out of the Field / Simon Coleman 75

7 Transitional Identities: Self, Other, and the Ethnographic Process / Janet L. Jacobs 88

8 Being (in) the Field: Defining Ethnography in Southern California and Central Slovakia / J. Shawn Landres 100

9 Encountering Latina Mobilization: Field Research on the U.S./Mexico Border / Milagros Pena 113

Part III Writing and Reading Ethnography

10 Writing about "the Other," Revisited / Karen McCarthy Brown 127

11 "There's Power in the Blood": Writing Serpent Handling as Everyday Life / Jim Birckhead 134

12 Voicing Spiritualities: Anchored Composites as an Approach to Understanding Religious Commitment / Marion S. Goldman 146

13 Against Univocality: Re-reading Ethnographies of Conservative Protestant Women / Julie Ingersoll 162

14 A Conscious Connection to All That Is: The Color Purple as Subversive and Critical Ethnography / Cheryl Townsend Gilkes 175

Part IV Beyond Personal Knowledge

15 New-Old Directions in the Social Scientific Study of Religion: Ethnography, Phenomenology, and the Human Body / Meredith B. McGuire 195

16 Greening Ethnography and the Study of Religion / Laurel Kearns 212

17 As the Other Sees Us: On Reciprocity and Mutual Reflection in the Study of Native American Religions / Armin W. Geertz 225

18 On the Epistemology of Post-Colonial Ethnography / James V. Spickard 237.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-273) and index.

ISBN:

0814798020

0814798039

OCLC:

47831358