Towards a 'transformative relationship

Evans-Pritchard, mysticism and anthropological fieldwork

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2248243
AutoresKit Lee (autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen40
Número5
Páginas7-9
Fecha de publicación2024-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnthropology Today (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0268-540X • E-ISSN: 1467-8322
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-8322.12912
OpenAlexW4403042305
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas10

Ongoing attempts to develop a 'transformative' relationship between anthropology and theology have exhorted anthropologists to look to theology to 'unsettle' existing understandings of the discipline's goals and potential. This article explores the 'transformative' relationship between anthropology and theology by examining E.E. Evans-Pritchard's perspective on fieldwork, influenced by his Catholic faith and mysticism. Evans-Pritchard saw both fieldwork and mysticism as rooted in shared experiential knowledge, challenging the discipline's secular foundation and reframing the relationship between anthropology and theology as grounded in a shared concern for experiential knowledge. Refiguring participant observation fieldwork in this way - as sharing a fundamental aspect with something as profoundly religious as mysticism - not only disrupts anthropology's understanding of its secular constitution but also reframes the relationship between anthropology and theology. This shift moves the relationship from one barred by a lack of shared beliefs to one potentially grounded in joint attention to and care for experiential knowledge

Epistemology · Mysticism · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Theology · Transformative learning · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Religious Tourism and Spaces