Alternative Religiosity (Anthropology Of Religion) Research Papers (original) (raw)

Obeah, which colonial ordinances defined capaciously as “any assumption of supernatural power,” was a crime in Trinidad until 2000, and the letter of the law continues to make Obeah a punishable offense in most of the anglophone Caribbean. Scholars have noted that contemporary attitudes toward Obeah—a hard-to-define term—are largely negative, implying spiritual harm. My fieldwork in a region of Trinidad regarded as the island’s capital of Obeah, however, revealed polyvalent, context-contingent attitudes toward the term. Using ethnographic examples, I offer alternatives to scholarly approaches that have attempted to explain away Obeah’s harm as evidence of colonial false consciousness. Rather than simply holding negative attitudes, my interlocutors took shifting, even contradictory stances toward Obeah that depended on tactical contexts of power. By examining attempts to intervene in the justice system through spiritual force, I argue that Obeah is a justice-making technology and that, like all systems of law, the potential for harm is part of its power. In the final part of the paper, I turn toward Obeah’s contested relationships with hegemonic definitions of religion. Rather than conforming to a definition of religions as mutually exclusive confessional communities rooted in collective avowals of belief, Obeah models a counterdiscourse on social relations that I call “altered solidarities,” challenging the limits of regnant conceptions of religion as the basis for legal recognition in modern states.

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- Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Latin American and Caribbean History, Violence

This article attempts to analyse a contemporary phenomenon from the sphere of alternative religiosity in the form of joke religions. The main subject of the analysis is a new religious movement called the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (CFSM), founded in the USA in 2005. By referring to the theory of carnival fun, joining the sacrum and profanum, and passing through the various doctrinal threads of this religious movement, the author attempts to answer the question of whether the CFSM can be considered a genuine religion or only a joke.
The article begins with a short reflection on the possibility of joking about religion and faith, and the response to religious humour by people of faith, which may range from anger to disgust and sometimes even to aggression. Then, after a short history of this new (pseudo-)religious movement, a perspective is developed. It emerges that the whole structure of the so-called doctrine of this (quasi-)religion refers to other known religions and beliefs, including other new religious movements.

Disgusted with ISIS, some Kurds turned away from Islam following the fall of Mosul in 2014. Many became atheists, while others sought comfort in Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrianism, according to converts, was the “original” religion of the Kurds before they embraced Islam. In 2015, two Zoroastrian centers opened in Sulaimani, both of which are recognized by the Kurdish Regional Government in northern Iraq. Notably, neither has tried to recreate Zoroastrianism the way it is currently and has been historically practiced in Iran and South Asia. Instead, they have created their own versions of Zoroastrianism, which is nationalist, postmodern, and liberal. Kurdish Zoroastrians argue that the reason Kurds are “backward” is Islam. They seek to rectify the present situation through a Kurdish “authenticated” and “original” form of Zoroastrianism. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at these two centers, the present article examines this new religious movement in Sulaimani, an important city in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. It analyses the rise and distinctiveness of Kurdish Zoroastrianism looking at how Zoroastrian Kurds articulate their views on Islam, women’s rights, human rights, and Kurdish independence.

- by Edith Szanto
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- Religion, New Religious Movements, Comparative Religion, Cultural History
- by Dr. Alexander Dunst
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- Psychoanalysis, Theology, Cultural Theory, Literary Theory

Document submitted for confirmation. Research proposal includes research aims, literature review and methodology.

- by Emma Quilty
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- Ritual, Embodiment, Phenomenology, Alternative Religiosity (Anthropology Of Religion)

Karolina M. Hess, Between Spiritualism, Theosophy and Christianity: Chosen Aspects of Esoteric Environments in Cieszyn Silesia in the First Half of the 20th Century [w:] Mystic and Esoteric Movements in Theory and Practice. Mystic and Esoteric Aspects of Contemporary Religions, S. Pakhomov (red.), Ekaterinburg 2016, s. 62–71. ISBN 5-7525-1269-9.
Whole volume: https://aiem-asem.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Сборник-АИЭМ-7_конф_Ек-бург_13_07_16.pdf

- by Martin Lepage, PhD
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- Gender Studies, Anthropology, Spirituality, Folk Religion

Alternative Voices of Anthropology is the print record of proceedings of an international symposium held in Kolkata during November 19-23, 2011, organized by the Indian Anthropological Society to commemorate its Golden Jubilee.
The question has been raised in this volume about whether Global Anthropology should a merely continue the Euro-American theoretical trends or accommodate local and alternative voices. This article reproduces the valedictory address to discuss alternative Indian voices of Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Swami Vivekananda, Tagore, Ambedkar, Phule that provide correctives to the monovocality of Western anthropology. It also brings in examples of the ideas of the mutuality, co existential living, nature culture harmony from indigenous thought, all over the world. It looks for the solution in non Western anthropological thought for the current crisis of human civilization, afflicted by violence, climate change and unsustainable life styles, overtaking humanity and the earth planet.

Enmarcado dentro de los llamados "Nuevos Movimientos Religiosos", el fenómeno de la Nueva Era, surgido en Estados Unidos en la década de 1960, obligó a repensar las fronteras de lo religioso. En Argentina, dentro de este campo, una figura que se destaca tanto por su alcance masivo como por su ubicua presencia mediática, es la de Claudio María Domínguez.

The fourth volume of Sects, Cults and New Religions contains articles and chapters about how people engage with relationships in new religions, with emphasis on sexual and family structures, the experiences of children, and also those connections that are mediated by technology, such as virtual communities. A secondary area of interest is the material culture that new religions render sacred, including pilgrimage routes and holy places in the Mormon tradition and food preparation and eating practices in the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON). Finally, relationships that are driven by political and societal affinity, and that arise as a result of radical changes such as globalization, anti-racism, and the impact of the World Wars of the twentieth century are considered.

Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit individuellen Ausformungen der Witchcraft-Bewegung, die aktuell über die sozialen Medien zum Ausdruck kommen. Susan Greenwoods Theorie zur Magical Consciousness, auf die weiter unten genauer eingegangen wird, bildet die Basis für die folgenden Überlegungen und soll eine Brücke zwischen dem magischen Gedankengut und der Sprachnutzung der Praktizierenden schlagen. Die These der Arbeit ist, dass der sinnliche und literarische Sprachgebrauch der Praktizierenden als Symbol dieses magischen Bewusstseins gesehen werden kann und dieses nach außen hin sichtbar macht. Des Weiteren soll sichtbar gemacht werden, dass die Sprache auch als ein Distributionsmedium für die Magie genutzt wird, sprich auch dem Praktizieren der Magie dient und ein kulturelles Merkmal der Bewegung ist. Es wird also davon ausgegangen, dass sich die Sprache, die in der Subkultur der Witchcraft-AnhängerInnen genutzt wird, von jener der westlichen Gesellschaft unterscheidet, in die diese Subkultur eingebettet ist. Es soll deutlich gemacht werden, dass sich die Form der individualisierten Witchcraft-Strömung, die sich aktuell über die sozialen Medien verbreitet, einer symbolischen Ästhetik bedient und dabei das Medium der Schrift nutzt, um Magie, Lebensstil und Zugehörigkeit Ausdruck zu verleihen.

The chapter examines changes from modern secularity to postmodern new religiosity where skepticism towards institutions remains. It investigates which forms of symbolic mediation of religious meaning might be still successful in this new setting, and how this mediation is nourished by bodies of religious practice, in the case of Christianity, the churches. It points out that the mistrust towards religious institutions affects Christianity also from within, and it is related to the shifts in the confessional belonging, bringing the experience of plurality and temporality within this very concept of confessional belonging which in the past used to emphasize the distinctive singularity and permanence. Finally alternative, models of Christian belonging are explored reaching before and beyond the confessional model.

- by Ivana Noble
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- Religion, Christianity, Sociology of Religion, Religion and Politics

Resumo Este ensaio reflete sobre as contribuições heréticas e da Reforma Protestante para as transformações religiosas do cristianismo mundial. Faz associações com práticas da teologia da libertação na América Latina e no Brasil e com os efeitos da popularização dos textos sagrados nos quais se baseiam o judaísmo e cristianismo. Ele parte dos salmos da reforma protestante compostos nos séculos XVI e XVII e inclui músicas de trabalho e religio-sas cantadas por militantes camponeses, poetas e músicos engajados na política brasileira. Baseia-se na memória e experiência do autor e de seus arquivos pessoais e na literatura pertinente encontrada em bibliotecas do Estado do Pará e nos sites de instituições de pesquisa. Considera que a produção protestante reformada trouxe contribuições importantes para a prática política democrática e libertária. Palavras-chave: Música engajada. Protestantismo, Teologia da libertação. Eclesiologia. Abstract This essay reflects over the heretic contributions of the Protestant Reformation for the religious transformations in Christianity world. It links its practices with the Theology of Liberation in Latin America and in Brazil, and the effects of the spread of the sacred texts of which Judaism and Christianity are based on. It takes as its starting point the Psalms of the Liberation Reform written in the 16 th and 17 th centuries constitute of work and religious songs performed by militant peasants, poets, and engaged musicians in Brazilian politics. It is based on the author's memories and

- by Mevludin Hasanovic and +1
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- Military History, Psychology, Anthropology, Psychological Anthropology