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

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3375191
AutoresLeigh Kathryn Jenco (0000-0001-7249-7843, John Brown University, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume101
Fascículo4
Páginas741-755
Data de publicação2007-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003055407070463
OpenAlexW2110301592
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas56
Referências 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