Things that Believe
Talismans, Amulets, Dolls, and How to Get Rid of Them
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7097776 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Fabio Gygi (0000-0001-9328-4281, University of London, corresponding author), Fabio R Gygi |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Publication date | 2018-12-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Japanese Journal of Religious Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0304-1042 |
| Publisher | Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture (PUBLISHER • JP) |
| DOI | 10.18874/jjrs.45.2.2018.423-452 |
| OpenAlex | W2920198259 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 13 |
Introduction: Object(s) of BeliefWhat is the relationship between religious objects and beliefs, between the materiality of things and the immaterial idea?There are, broadly speaking, two ways of approaching this question in the anthropology of religion.Either religious objects are understood as expressions of cognitively held beliefsor, conversely, belief emerges as the result of practices involving religious objects.For the former to work, several conceptual accommodations are required.For example: to treat religious objects as mere 'expressions' of belief is part of the Protestant strategy to decontaminate matter from its more 'contagious' Catholic forms, in which the sacred can appear in the material shape of relics.Objects of belief are therefore based on a belief in objects.Webb Keane calls this "semiotic ideology," a system of assumptions that define what counts as real presence and what counts as sign (2005).These semiotic ideologies are there to create stable links between the signifier and the signified, between the material and the numinous world.In spite of this, such settlements are rarely stable: things always exceed their own signification (Nakamura 2008).The second approach, concerned with the material and bodily practices of believers rather than with cognitive content, has been particularly fruitful in the study of Japanese religions, where the notion of belief has long been a thorny issue, especially in post-war anthropology (Isomae 2012;Fitzgerald 2003).This shift in focus allows the circumvention of 'belief' as core concept in the analysis of indigenous practice, addressing instead "the conditions that shape the feelings, senses, spaces, and performances of belief, that is, the material coordinates or forms of religious practice" (Morgan 2010: 6).Such a refocusing not only brings matter back into the fold, it also re-centres the study of religion on practice:Rematerializing the study of religion from its long-term commitment to scripture and theology means returning texts to their con-texts of objects, images, and spaces wherein texts are found and used.There we also find, animating this whole magnificent panoply of things, the actual people who produce objects and then render them dynamic in practice.(Zito 2011: 20) Religious objects, then, become things to believe with, material entities through which belief is created and performedas opposed to the more Protestant view that ritual enacts beliefs that are already cognitively held (Bachnik 1995
Art · Literature · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Diverse Cultural and Historical Studies · Geographies of human-animal interactions · History
| Unique citing works | 4 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,57 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2023 (5) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 4 |