Belief

Bibliographic Data

ID20071265
AuthorsJon P Mitchell (0009-0009-6380-910X, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages397-412
Publication date2026-02-19
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueThe Oxford Handbook of the Anthropology of Religion (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressOxford (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/9780191822285.003.0023
OpenAlexW7124886638
ISBN9780191822285
LanguageEN
References cited26

This chapter examines the development of the anthropological theorizations of belief. It is oriented around a contrast between “internalist” renderings of belief and “externalist” accounts. The former, characteristic of a Weberian–Geertzian tradition, see belief as a particular state of mind, while the latter, rooted in Durkheimian and Foucauldian ideas, see it as socially or discursively derived, a form of social claim. Several scholars have questioned the legitimacy of belief as a concept, particularly when discussing non-Christian religious practice. This has led to a focus on belief as epistemology, or ontology. Rather than believing, do the religious “know,” or occupy a world in which religious entities are “simply there”? The chapter closes with an examination of belief among anthropologists. To understand the lifeworlds of their religious interlocutors, must anthropologists themselves “believe”

Belief system · Legitimacy · Religious belief · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Emile Durkheim and Sociology · Religion, Society, and Development

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