Roger I Lohmann | Trent University (original) (raw)
Papers by Roger I Lohmann
The Anthropology of Empathy: Experiencing the Lives of Others in Pacific Societies, 2011
From p. 113: "In this essay I approached the methodological problem of empathy by documenting a n... more From p. 113: "In this essay I approached the methodological problem of empathy by documenting a native point of view on the nature and possibilities of attaining a native point of view. I reported what some Asabano people told me about their views on empathy. Their caution that we can never know for sure what another person thinks or feels at any point in time, at least not in its entirety, must steady us from declaring greater knowledge than we have. However, as social participants, in practice we all engage in and rely upon the estimates made possible by empathy. We daily stake our lives on the conviction that we have approximate knowledge of what others think and feel in particular situations. Empathy, a reasoned approximation of another’s inner state based on the percepts and images of another being with analogous capacities, bridges the gaps between the minds that make up a society like neurotransmitters bridge the synapses between neurons in a nervous system. Empathy, imprecise as it is, conveys cultural information across the macro-synapses that divide us from one another, and does so successfully enough for coherent and recognizable traditions to span vast populations, and to persist for hundreds of years."
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Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2023
Ethnic cultural conceptualizations of consciousness often posit souls or other spirits, but these... more Ethnic cultural conceptualizations of consciousness often posit souls or other spirits, but these do not always address consciousness itself. This article describes an autochthonous model of consciousness that was current among the Asabano people of central New Guinea before first contact in the mid-twentieth century. In their conceptualization, one’s own souls were not seen as essences of the self or agents of personal awareness. Rather, they merely inflected awareness, which was understood to occur in the heart. This Indigenous model of consciousness attributed selfish impulses and bodily strength to a ‘little soul’ and generous inclinations to a ‘big soul’. The heart was the seat of thought and feeling and the recipient of the souls’ proddings, and sensory perceptions originating in other body parts.
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Material Religion, 2007
... Another take on these articles and their significance is provided in the Afterword by Janet H... more ... Another take on these articles and their significance is provided in the Afterword by Janet Hoskins. ... Not only does humanity create its gods and spirits in its own image, Homo religiosus sees humanlike agency, volition, and bodily substance in objects that are the focus of ...
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... The other was Ruth Benedict ([1934] 1953), whose use of Fortune's materials made the... more ... The other was Ruth Benedict ([1934] 1953), whose use of Fortune's materials made the ... The fact that Benedict, and later Gregory Bateson, were competitors for Mead's ... the younger, psychologist Fortune influenced the slightly older, postMargaret Mead, anthropologist Fortune. ...
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Anthropologica, 2014
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 0066467032000129842, Jun 9, 2010
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Reviews in Anthropology, 2006
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Ethnology, Mar 22, 2005
Page 1. THE AFTERLIFE OF ASABANO CORPSES: RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE DECEASED IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA1 &a... more Page 1. THE AFTERLIFE OF ASABANO CORPSES: RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE DECEASED IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA1 '~.~-n .s Papua New Guinea ;5Pa^..^* be ^un. Roger Ivar Lohmann JQ#^~ f;xzc#~~~~ Trent University ...
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Reviews in Anthropology, Apr 1, 2008
Biographies of anthropologists are widely recognized as useful for the history of science and the... more Biographies of anthropologists are widely recognized as useful for the history of science and the discipline. Introducing this special issue ''Biographies of Anthropologists,'' I argue that they not only provide information about anthropology, but also data for anthropology because they are studies of human agents enmeshed in social and cultural contexts, comparable to life histories of ethnographic informants. Biographies of anthropologists are of similar importance for empirical and theoretical anthropology as ethnographies, grammars, and mono- graphs in archaeology and biological anthropology. They depict cultural dynamics from a person-centered, intimate, experience-near, and diachronic perspective on anthropology's cluster of sodalities.
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 00664677 2010 515291, Oct 12, 2010
This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropo... more This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropology of creations, and identifies some central concerns and definitions. Juxtaposing emic and etic perspectives, I derive several principles to guide the study of creations. Culture consists of creations, which are products of minds, and exist in three media: thoughts, behaviours and artefacts. Only by being
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 00938150490447439, Aug 16, 2010
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Anthropologica, 2014
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Ethnology, Mar 22, 2001
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 0066467032000129770, Jun 9, 2010
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Anthropology News, 1991
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Anthropology News, 1990
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Anthropology News, 1991
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The Anthropology of Empathy: Experiencing the Lives of Others in Pacific Societies, 2011
From p. 113: "In this essay I approached the methodological problem of empathy by documenting a n... more From p. 113: "In this essay I approached the methodological problem of empathy by documenting a native point of view on the nature and possibilities of attaining a native point of view. I reported what some Asabano people told me about their views on empathy. Their caution that we can never know for sure what another person thinks or feels at any point in time, at least not in its entirety, must steady us from declaring greater knowledge than we have. However, as social participants, in practice we all engage in and rely upon the estimates made possible by empathy. We daily stake our lives on the conviction that we have approximate knowledge of what others think and feel in particular situations. Empathy, a reasoned approximation of another’s inner state based on the percepts and images of another being with analogous capacities, bridges the gaps between the minds that make up a society like neurotransmitters bridge the synapses between neurons in a nervous system. Empathy, imprecise as it is, conveys cultural information across the macro-synapses that divide us from one another, and does so successfully enough for coherent and recognizable traditions to span vast populations, and to persist for hundreds of years."
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Journal of Consciousness Studies, 2023
Ethnic cultural conceptualizations of consciousness often posit souls or other spirits, but these... more Ethnic cultural conceptualizations of consciousness often posit souls or other spirits, but these do not always address consciousness itself. This article describes an autochthonous model of consciousness that was current among the Asabano people of central New Guinea before first contact in the mid-twentieth century. In their conceptualization, one’s own souls were not seen as essences of the self or agents of personal awareness. Rather, they merely inflected awareness, which was understood to occur in the heart. This Indigenous model of consciousness attributed selfish impulses and bodily strength to a ‘little soul’ and generous inclinations to a ‘big soul’. The heart was the seat of thought and feeling and the recipient of the souls’ proddings, and sensory perceptions originating in other body parts.
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Material Religion, 2007
... Another take on these articles and their significance is provided in the Afterword by Janet H... more ... Another take on these articles and their significance is provided in the Afterword by Janet Hoskins. ... Not only does humanity create its gods and spirits in its own image, Homo religiosus sees humanlike agency, volition, and bodily substance in objects that are the focus of ...
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... The other was Ruth Benedict ([1934] 1953), whose use of Fortune's materials made the... more ... The other was Ruth Benedict ([1934] 1953), whose use of Fortune's materials made the ... The fact that Benedict, and later Gregory Bateson, were competitors for Mead's ... the younger, psychologist Fortune influenced the slightly older, postMargaret Mead, anthropologist Fortune. ...
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Anthropologica, 2014
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 0066467032000129842, Jun 9, 2010
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Reviews in Anthropology, 2006
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Ethnology, Mar 22, 2005
Page 1. THE AFTERLIFE OF ASABANO CORPSES: RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE DECEASED IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA1 &a... more Page 1. THE AFTERLIFE OF ASABANO CORPSES: RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE DECEASED IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA1 '~.~-n .s Papua New Guinea ;5Pa^..^* be ^un. Roger Ivar Lohmann JQ#^~ f;xzc#~~~~ Trent University ...
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Reviews in Anthropology, Apr 1, 2008
Biographies of anthropologists are widely recognized as useful for the history of science and the... more Biographies of anthropologists are widely recognized as useful for the history of science and the discipline. Introducing this special issue ''Biographies of Anthropologists,'' I argue that they not only provide information about anthropology, but also data for anthropology because they are studies of human agents enmeshed in social and cultural contexts, comparable to life histories of ethnographic informants. Biographies of anthropologists are of similar importance for empirical and theoretical anthropology as ethnographies, grammars, and mono- graphs in archaeology and biological anthropology. They depict cultural dynamics from a person-centered, intimate, experience-near, and diachronic perspective on anthropology's cluster of sodalities.
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 00664677 2010 515291, Oct 12, 2010
This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropo... more This introduction provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue on the anthropology of creations, and identifies some central concerns and definitions. Juxtaposing emic and etic perspectives, I derive several principles to guide the study of creations. Culture consists of creations, which are products of minds, and exist in three media: thoughts, behaviours and artefacts. Only by being
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 00938150490447439, Aug 16, 2010
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Anthropologica, 2014
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Ethnology, Mar 22, 2001
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Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 0066467032000129770, Jun 9, 2010
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Anthropology News, 1991
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Anthropology News, 1990
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Anthropology News, 1991
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Ethos, 2013
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Journal of the Polynesian Society, 2017
Tomlinson, M. and D. McDougall: Christian politics in Oceania. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2013... more Tomlinson, M. and D. McDougall: Christian politics in Oceania. New York, NY: Berghahn Books, 2013. vix + 235 pp., bib., figs, index, maps. US$90.00 (hardcover).
Roger Ivar Lohmann Trent University
Christian domination across Oceania, fractured along denominational and cultural lines, has political consequences. This fine volume explores the intersections of Christianity and politics in relatively young and weak states of the Western Pacific. The chapters mainly describe and analyse local struggles, losses, and triumphs during ethnographic moments when cultural anthropologists were living in the thick of things, while touching on broader regional and temporal perspectives.
In the introduction, Tomlinson and McDougall point out that Christianity is very frequently treated as an assumed basis for agreement in the cases from Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, and Fiji featured in this book. Churches often serve as focal points for all sorts of political concerns, they argue, because while states are often distant and ineffectual, churches are often socially present and vibrant venues for action. Politicians, governments, and constituents make ubiquitous references to Christianity. However, while both churches and states have universal pretentions that may inspire common identity, cultural divisions continually give the lie to claims of national or cosmic unity. It is inaccurate to label these countries “nation-states” (e.g. p. 5) since they comprise multiple ethnic and cultural aggregates, including indigenous and exogenous religions as well as multiple versions of Christianity.
Courtney Handman’s chapter, “Mediating Denominational Disputes: Land Claims and the Sound of Christian Critique in the Waria Valley, Papua New Guinea,” discusses the tension between the universalistic aspirations of Christianity and on-the-ground political realities. Her examples are a land dispute between denominations and questions about the appropriateness of locally traditional drums versus introduced guitars for church services. In the first situation, a church leader claimed authority from God. Resistance exposed speaking on behalf of a deity to be neither politics-free nor universally “true”, but rather an act of domination. In the latter situation, drum use signalled a critique of the competing denomination.
Michael W. Scott’s chapter, set in Solomon Islands, compares competing images and evaluations of Makira Islanders’ notions about an underground army. These discourses draw both on pre-contact beliefs in underground, dwarfish indigenous people who represent true, primordial custom, and cargoist ideas deriving from World War II and recent civil war experiences. The dominant view is that the underground army will bring back a purified customary way of life on earth that is conflated with Christian ideas of Heaven. Scott compares this to the view of a Seventh Day Adventist couple who conflate the underground army with Satanic powers.
Matt Tomlinson’s chapter considers how denominational politics affects Christianity in Fiji. Although his focus is on a particular sermon reflecting a fleeting moment following a coup, he contexualises this in the broader history of Fiji since missionaries arrived in 1830. Tomlinson shows how religious fashions respond to and influence political developments in a country’s history. The sermon, associated with the breakaway New Methodist denomination, called on listeners to accept the new government since their coup’s success proved divine approval. This denomination emphasises newness and chatty prayer rather than the formulaic prayer of Methodism.
Annelin Eriksen’s “Christian Politics in Vanuatu: Lay Priests and New State Forms” relates recent theorizing about how states work to the contemporary denominational situation in Vanuatu. Non-governmental organizations such as churches carry out state functions of organizing people, distributing resources, and providing services. How these developments relate to non-state political systems and non-Christian religions in this part of the world is not described.
Debra McDougall’s chapter, “Evangelical Public Culture: Making Stranger-Citizens in Solomon Islands,” traces knock-on effects of Billy Graham’s 1959 Australian tour. It inspired people to seek personal evidence of supernatural favour and helped generate denominational diversification and acceptance of non-Christian religions including Islam. She illustrates this with the sect-hopping religious lives of two young men. Transcending the cacophony is evangelical drive and charismatic worship, which connects people from different ethnic, geographic, linguistic, and religious orientations.
John Barker’s “Anthropology and the Politics of Christianity in Papua New Guinea” shows that the preponderance of cultural anthropologists working there has led to an emphasis on local communities rather than state-wide perspectives. Work on the relationship between Christianity and PNG politics has addressed connections between Christianity and traditional leaders, millenarian movements, vernacular Christianity, conversion, and the relationship between continuity and change.
Geoffrey White argues in “Chiefs, Church, and State in Santa Isabel, Solomon Islands” that the state has yet to be clearly conceptualized in the “government” component of the three-part Melanesian paradigm of government, church, and custom. He documents 30 years of events surrounding the installation of chiefs and bishops, and fraught efforts to create a meaningful role for chiefs as both part of and distinct from the state. While imagery of “traditional” chiefship and Christian institutions are well-integrated, the state appears stodgy and artificial.
Joel Robbins’s chapter asks, “Why Is There No Political Theology among the Urapmin.” His answer is that roles requiring self-assertion, critique, and conflict (“politics”) are separated from those expressing religious and social unity in their identity as charismatic Christians. I wonder if restricting “politics” to individual wrangling as opposed to organizing around common sacred assumptions might not introduce confusions. Urapmin pastors and deacons are also political leaders, but they maintain common purpose rather than expressing controversial views. As Robbins says, it is helpful to “stretch” culturally limited definitions of politics to fit the varying empirical realities that anthropologists discover.
Webb Keane’s afterword points up several patterns emerging from the volume. Christianity both unifies and divides people. There is a widespread assumption that morality must or should have a basis in religion, and in Christianity in particular. And, Christianity’s explicit rules exist in tension with implicit moral systems. This high quality and original volume inspires us to ask what is distinctive about Christian politics versus that of other religions and secular ideologies. Answering this question enables us to recognize the uses and dangers of politically charged Christianities and other supernaturally based truth claims.
Reference for this book review:
Lohmann, Roger Ivar. 2017. Review of Christian Politics in Oceania. Journal of the Polynesian Society 126(3):360–361.
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Anthropos, 2018
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