Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shamanism
- 2 Buddhism and Spirit-Cults
- 3 Islam and Popular Religion
- 4 Hinduism and New Religious Movements
- 5 Christianity and Religion in Africa
- 6 African-American Religions
- 7 Religions in Melanesia
- 8 Neopaganism and the New Age Movement
- Conclusions
- References
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Shamanism
- 2 Buddhism and Spirit-Cults
- 3 Islam and Popular Religion
- 4 Hinduism and New Religious Movements
- 5 Christianity and Religion in Africa
- 6 African-American Religions
- 7 Religions in Melanesia
- 8 Neopaganism and the New Age Movement
- Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
This book is in a real sense an update and a sequel to my text Anthropological Studies of Religion (1987). It thus offers a critical introduction or guide to the extensive anthropological literature on religion that has been produced over the past forty years or so – with a specific focus on the more well-known and substantive ethnographic studies. My earlier text gave a broad, historical but critical survey of the many different theoretical approaches to religion that had emerged since the end of the nineteenth century – a path that has since been well trod by several other scholars (e.g., Hamilton 1995, Pals 1996, Cunningham 1999, and D. Gellner 1999).
With regard to the present text, I adopt a very different strategy; I take a more geographical approach, for in an important sense the major religious systems – Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, African, Melanesian – are regional phenomena, even though they may have universalizing tendencies. It must be emphasized at the outset, however, that not only is religion a complex and variable phenomenon, but also it is essentially a social phenomenon. Religion is a social institution, a sociocultural system; and it is thus ill understood when viewed simply as an ideology, or as a system of beliefs, still less as merely a ‘symbolic system’ (Geertz), an ‘awareness of the transcendent’ (Tambiah), or a ‘feeling of the numinous’ (Otto).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Religion and AnthropologyA Critical Introduction, pp. 1 - 13Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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