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Focusing on places, objects, bodies, narratives and ritual spaces where religion may be found or inscribed, the authors reveal the role of religion in contesting rights to places, to knowledge and to property, as well as access to resources. Through analyses of specific historical processes in terms of responses to socio-economic and political change, the chapters consider implicitly or explicitly the problematic relation between science (including social sciences and anthropology in particular) and religion, and how this connects to the new religious globalisation of the twenty-first century. Their ethnographies highlight the embodiment of religion and its location in landscapes, built spaces and religious sites which may be contested, physically or ideologically, or encased in memory and often in silence. Taken together, they show the importance of religion as a resource to the believers: a source of solace, spiritual comfort and self-willed submission.
“The result, with an overarching focus on ‘modernity and its ambivalences’ is a well-written and insightful volume, which presents new and exciting ways of dealing with one of anthropology’s more ancient (but still essential) research topics.” · Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
“…an engaging contribution to the anthropology of religion…Overall, this volume is a treasure trove of inspiring ethnographies.” · JRAI
“Contributors to this volume stay very close to their data. They do not advance grand theories of religion.Nor do they limit themselves to the usual topics in anthropological studies like doctrine, faith, and ritual. Transcending the Durkheimian perspective (that understood religion in terms of collective rituals and morality), contributors instead focus on religion as a malleable and highly reflexive process. They advocate a ‘lateral’ (Needham), broadly comparative approach to the anthropological study of religion. Highly recommended.” · Anthropos
List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1. On the Margins: An Introduction
João de Pina-Cabral and Frances Pine
Chapter 2. Homeless Spirits: Modern Spiritualism, Psychical Research and the Anthropology of Religion in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
João Vasconcelos
Chapter 3. The Abominations of Anthropology: Christianity, Ethnographic Taboos and the Meanings of 'Science'
Simon Coleman
Chapter 4. Religious Logistics: African Christians, Spirituality and Transportation
Thomas Kirsch
Chapter 5. Contested Spaces: Temple Building and the Re-creation of Religious Boundaries in Contemporary Urban India
Ursula Rao
Chapter 6. Bosnian Neighbourhoods Revisited: Tolerance, Commitment and Kom¡siluk in Sarajevo
Cornelia Sorabji
Chapter 7. Revival of Buddhist Royal Family Commemorative Ritual in Laos
Grant Evans
Chapter 8. Centres and Margins: The Organisation of Extravagance as Self-government in China
Stephan Feuchtwang
Chapter 9. Allies and Subordinates: Religious Practice on the Margins between Buddhism and Shamanism in Southern Siberia
Galina Lindquist
Chapter 10. On Celibate Marriages: Conversion to the Brahma Kumaris in Poland
Agnieszka Koscianska
Chapter 11. Elders' Cathedrals and Children's Marbles: Dynamics of Religious Transmission among the Baga of Guinea
Ramon Sarró
Chapter 12. Geomancy, Politics and Colonial Encounters in Rural Hong Kong
Rubie S. Watson and James L. Watson
Chapter 13. The Sacrifices of Modernity in a Soviet-built Steel Town in Central India
Jonathan P. Parry
Notes on Contributors
Index