Dialogues: anthropology and theology

The past five years have witnessed an increased interest in a dialogue between anthropology and theology, evidenced part by suite of edited volumes (e.g. Lauterbach & Vähäkangas 2020; Lemons 2018; Tomlinson Mathews 2018). Analyses informed this interdisciplinary nexus demonstrated the utility theological concepts for anthropological inquiry Robbins Williams Green 2021). following series dialogues anthropologists theologians builds on growing body work, expanding it at two main points. First, while above conversations are all focused Christian mainly as means engaging practice, our move beyond religion. engage intersection Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, well Christian, theology.11 These include reflections upon suitability terms ‘theology’ ‘theologian’ each context. Second, many these foreground particular experiences scholars both theology who identify some way with religious traditions they study. Some took place had established relationship; others involved partners not previously met, but agreed to correspond view shared dialogue. As starting point, participants were given questions orient their exchanges, such as, ‘How does faith relate knowledge disciplines?’ Conversations mostly over email later help one journal editors, Adam Reed, members Editorial Board, Naomi Haynes. On 15 February 2021, biblical scholar Jione Havea anthropologist Matt conversation online. is based Melbourne Canberra, lands which never been ceded Wurundjeri Ngunnawal peoples, respectively. read Havea's work research project contextual from Oceania; treat social context personal experience grounds can meet God. In preparation conversation, Tomlinson's resulting monograph God Samoan (2020). Both approached meeting talanoa, genre conversational interaction central Pacific societies. reader will see, talanoa was about nature itself. recording transcribed Rhiannon Tanner. then transcription produce new document reflecting conversation's themes, checking final product approval. I've reading lot studies through lens. Your stands out reasons. you've published extensively, several monographs, around twenty volumes, collaborations other theologians. your interests expansive. You write Old Testament texts, culture society, identity, sex gender, dialogue, colonialism postcolonialism, justice, topics. book yours that I know best, Elusions control,22 See (2003). you draw Derrida, Jameson, Ricoeur, Foucault theorists. My first question how or if see relationship work. Does offer anything studies, so, what? That's heavy question. Let me answer kind roundabout – fashion. do think sit under same umbrella sociological But i33 uses lower case when he subject person ‘i’. For reasons: first, because English Tongan used second third persons, and, second, capitalizing first-person singular evidence privileging individual self (an ailment modernity language). want say any discipline, theory, including works anthropology, be helpful. It depends practitioner. example, i would criticize Margaret Mead situation, even though ethnographic element very helpful us. know, equally bad. There crossing borrowing my it's done. just Māori colleague pakeha [European, ‘white’] packed her language bag Māori, control what goes into bag. So colleague, needs done is, well, let's weave let pack own stories. When white historians bag, so fragile readership: readers can't handle messy, filthy accounts savageries noble forebears. Whereas she wants something shows savageness [courage] people resistant enduring. political question, eh! there whose discuss like Ama'amalele Tofaeono Upolu Lumā Vaai began systematic now use label. quickly qualify has become ‘white’ project. Because getting us natives prefer term ‘native’, ‘brown people’ appropriate Western thinking, giving credibility. We say, ‘Oh, we contextualizing’, end also language. public well. So, theology? Contextual theologies talk back. Theologies opportunities Yes, also, don't fall nativist drive, where only things. Jenny's right. And me, commitment. This drive Oceania Biblical Studies Association talanoa: it, ourselves next generation, otherwise (and pardon language) Europe come go back authority Which fault. It's fault doing need do. speak behalf little complex. kava-drinking circle, Kadavu, Fiji. Also boys prison [Havea chaplaincy], church communities conferences. unfolding changed time. remember piece wrote story telling. mean, probably came fourth it. If president calls nobody up! talanoa. expert shut down. Or open things up. is. Kadavu. Same Tonga. power, status, class, influence take place. matter having around. Uniting Church Australia, Islanders ‘Let's issue sexuality, across gender. Male female down together room conversation’. every time raise women, they've quite i'm woman. cases male female, engaged taboo subject, But, bring again, nobody's going One i've annoyed lately United Nations ‘talanoa process’ now.77 Kirsch Since heard told Nāsili Vaka'uta once UN takes becomes Westernized lose spirit, eh? mention last paragraph describe moment ends happens.88 (2020: 108). With using process, won't get corrugated iron hut call fū [Tongan; clapping kava session] happens. Talanoa, enables moment. that. afternoon, bothering good way. three understandings mentioned [story, telling, conversation], add happens joke Oh, try put different A former student mine Siaˈatoutai Theological College described drinks he'll drunk, home most people, eat. taro cassava, whatever. eat asleep. wake up morning finish left his mouth. at. That morning. feel paragraph. circle ended divine disbanded. description effectiveness clicks. haven't thought Maybe that's what's happening. comes being ongoing. spoken Coconut Theology indigenous meant. He spoke Theology, course, heart more practice. What important him coconut bread ‘This Christ’. practical important. sense, ‘yes’. I'm continuing unconscious. Going go, serve communion week Good Friday. ritual practise prison. Bible, Bible study, Friday, nice loaf communion, after we'll again until waste bread. element. feeding rather than me. side father's pick Funafuti there's nothing, tapioca pushing for. brought sure worth talking about. [Laughs.] thing currently struggling step books worked year hermeneutical explorations Australia: horizons contextuality.1010 (2021a). started project, wanted critically rethink theology. didn't way, revisit redo contextual? redefine got projects coming year. media context.1111 (2021b). COVID-19 ‘new normal’.1212 (2021c). pandemic? really geographical sense. ideological. political. realizing complexity called natures early Talal Al-Azem, specialist Islamic history, Johan Rasanayagam, focuses Islam, drawing inform teaching Muslim societies past, developing engagement shifts focus representing Islam Muslims thinking human those traditions. Our research, shaped readings other's disciplines. soon turned teaching, disciplinary tradition prompted reflect students. presented below version online conversations. An difference alterity mode knowing. others, de-centre perspectives imagine possibilities being. realize while, embraced us, least, failed teaching. ago, received criticism feedback forms students course religion teach. wrote: lecturer should careful presenting topics theories found said offensive fact. did defend agree tutorial. form, another stated that, ‘and exist’, shocking full students, opinion response misunderstanding. designed examine produced analytic object within contrasting theoretical frames, Durkheimian phenomenon, Geertzian cultural symbolic system meaning, Marxist approach, Bourdieu's concept habitus. had, fact, lectures words effect ‘gods spirits, witches, aren't real. However, quoting Durkheim, structural functionalist John Middleton, analyses presenting. crossed mind misunderstanding quote, fact quote. They may thought, failing distinguish beliefs examination, detached subjective positions, frames provide distinctive phenomena. addressed problem future iterations stating clearly outset opinions existence spirit beings, providing discussion conceptual could develop faculty critical thinking. Reflecting own, deeper on. Even fully aware seeking instil critical, comparative approach itself normatively secular space. By mean ‘we’ assumed, comprising lecturer, student, discipline whole. ‘We’ implicitly placed outside ‘them’, perform analysis. claim objectivity such. aims suggest theory produces its attention neutrally describing reality existing independent observer. analysis produces, simply describes, society manifestation society. culturalist meaning. Rather, secularity establishes space objects laid panoramic before analyst them, position comprehend ‘worlds’, ‘cultures’, ‘social constructions’ perspective, classify manipulate them pursuit insights. Oppositions set up, implicit unacknowledged reflective, production unreflective living culture. Students Muslim, identified themselves culturalized, objectified ‘other’ produced, albeit unintentionally. no wonder felt alienated. professional practice opposed recognized representation. Lila Abu-Lughod, expressed somewhat similar course. She writes feminist ‘halfie’, someone ‘national identity mixed virtue migration, overseas education, parentage’, makes impossible maintain boundary objectified, culturalized ‘other’.1313 Abu-Lughod (1991: 137). Just were, halfie made uncomfortable occupying expected notion raised you, Johan: namely, ‘engagement’ tradition. already difficult objectification representation ‘them’ arise classroom. think, might here: serves interlocutor. regards Muslims, fields area Orientalism, various hues chequered histories. idea entering meaningful attempts disclose other, highlights one's movement led obviously number anthropologists, fashion few theologians, study teach Muslims. highlighted, disciplines construal object. dominant paradigms century, theologian Islamicist must decide ‘the object’ Islam. order able all, defines essential unique qualities remains contention, publication late Shahab Ahmed's Islam?1414 Ahmed (2015). impasses, dialogical other’ supported academic From submit ‘essential’ prove controversial, points outlining, with, traditions’ ‘anthropologies’. premised realist ontology. point: ‘There save God’ testimony faith. pertinent present Qur'an posits understanding being, thus psyche, vision fundamentally transformationalist. normative ‘way Prophet’ (the sunna) affirmed faith, ‘Muhammad Messenger meant operationalize transformationalist psychology history. credal form basis Qur'anic Toshiku Izutsu, man Qur'an,1515 Izutsu (1964). argues radical break threat Arabian Muhammad's valued individual. pre-Islamic value predicated existence, strength, weakness tribe, connected spiritual prehistory eschatological post-history. metaphysical moral himself herself, regardless tribal affiliation. variations, historical Islamicate followed basic ontology human, individually argue varied institutions assumed metaphysic psychology. Much outlined fruits philological approaches ideas provided sciences, especially begin. latter better understand structures present, motivations, thoughts, behaviour individuals tradition, avenue moving impasses face endeavours; assimilating ‘their’ world concepts, allowing rooted ontology, man, conscience emerge self-critique. Recently, ‘post-secular’ sort outlined. Joel anthropology's ‘awkward relationship’.1616 (2006). part, either interrogated roots treated data worldview studied. Instead, invites seriously theology's intellectual positions ethnography. Another proponent move, Kahn, posed someone, selfhood ‘scientific naturalism’, establish productive encounters ‘horizons belief’, ‘ontological construals’, differ radically own.1717 Kahn (2011). common stance encountering ontologies grounded immanent, disenchanted observes, suspension disbelief, bracketing off remain modes perceiving. Kahn. confines differing construals space, private morality, non-secular reasoning excluded. disbelief enabled represent worlds, ontologies. alternative proposes active mutually transformative off. While reasonings differ, can, hopes, shift parties. Along lines, Philip Fountain advocated theology.1818 (2013). post-secular start reflection profoundly discipline. attests, excludes hold commitments, forces occupy ‘methodological agnosticism’ atheism neutral, objective position. Rather bracket commitments analysis, entail embrace ‘anthro-theology’. observe describe, reimagines promotes flourishing hopeful futures, identifies progressed Anthropology cannot keep arm's length, argues, maintaining superiority universalist recognize plurality construals. recent have, believe, possibility approach. Brinkley Messick's Shari‘a scripts: anthropology,1919 Messick (2018). powerful example Muslims’ legal embedded practitioners traditions, bridged. result objectification, ways knowing arguing practised Yemeni subjects intelligible intelligent. Similar deploying ethnographical theologically rationalities Stefania Pandolfo's Knot soul, Ellen Amster's Medicine saints, Hussein Agrama's Questioning secularism, post-Soviet Uzbekistan: morality experience.2020 Agrama (2012); Amster (2013); Pandolfo (2018); Rasanayagam None reduce tropes piety, nor flatten beings studied worlds. unites examination changes societies’ practices impacted bureaucratic, medical, twentieth twenty-first century. reason morally, pursue psychological physical ‘health’, seek governance relation notions meaningful. And, willing, allow insofar taken yet human. borne fruit tutorials, assigned alongside history practices, law Wael Hallaq's state, example.2121 Hallaq (2009; 2011). Armed tools make connections embodied (or not) surprised delighted whatever stance. everyday life became tangible possibility. Previously, textbooks promising insight live often delivered nothing lists dogma philology long ago produced. Now, anthropologically much vividly possible abandon philosophy mere ethnography; creatively fused together, sum greater parts. nuanced appreciation philosophies actually lived perception, perceptions, beginning possible. Likewise, modern period, rise nation-state, governmentality, law, medicine, North Africa Southeast Asia, transformed traditional allowed modernism, colonialism, nation-states world. achieved without reductively essentializing dogma, dismissing downplaying engagements stake theol