"What Does Heaven Ever Say?" A Methods-centered Approach to Cross-cultural Engagement

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3375191
AutoresLeigh Kathryn Jenco (0000-0001-7249-7843, John Brown University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen101
Número4
Páginas741-755
Fecha de publicación2007-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003055407070463
OpenAlexW2110301592
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas56
Referencias citadas52

How can we conduct cross-cultural inquiry without reproducing the ethnocentric categories that prompt critique in the first place? Postcolonial and comparative political theorists have called into question the "universal" applicability of Western liberal political norms, but their critiques are drawn most often from competing Western discourses (e.g., poststructuralism) rather than from the culturally diverse traditions of scholarship whose ideas they examine. In contrast, I suggest attending to these culturally situated traditions of scholarship, especially their methods of inquiry, in addition to their substantive ideas. This method-centered approach reinterprets cross-cultural engagement, not as a tool for modifying existing parochial debates on the basis of "non-Western" cases, but as an opportunity to ask new questions through alternative frames of reference. Examining the interpretive methodologies of two Chinese classicists, I show how their methods offer not only new ideas but also new methods for the practice of political and cross-cultural theory

Cross-cultural · Epistemology · Ethnocentrism · Heaven · Political science · Politics · Scholarship · Situated · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Chinese history and philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religious Education and Schools