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Antropologicheskij forum, 2022, no. 55
Evgeniia Abroskina State Hermitage Museum Yulia Antonyan Yerevan State University Dmitry Baranov Russian Museum of Ethnography Vladimir Bobrovnikov Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences Victoria Fomina University of St Andrews Mansur Gasimzianov University of Amsterdam Elza-Bair Guchinova Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences Marina Hakkarainen European University at St Petersburg Natalia Kryukova Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences Art Leete University of Tartu Mariе Masagutova European University at St Petersburg Igor Mikeshin University of Helsinki Alexander A. Panchenko European University at St Petersburg Danila Rygovskiy University of Tartu Yulia Senina European University at St Petersburg Laur Vallikivi University of Tartu Abstract: “Material religion” as a research program is a relatively new development in the study of religion in the social sciences and humanities. Though this approach has its own forerunners and predecessors, one can argue that it took shape in the wake of an epistemological critique of social and cultural anthropology which treated religion as embedded in the cognitive and psychological experiences of a human being. Accordingly, the material manifestation of religion used to be treated as secondary, optional, and even superfluous. Criticism of this understanding of the nature of religion and of the methods of its studying focuses on the cultural and historical specificity of this approach originating from the use of Protestantism as a model for any religion. The material turn, in contrast, argues that spiritual experience is or at least can be studied as a derivation of bodily practices and experiences caused by the communication of a human with things, substances, images, sounds, fragrances, and flavours. Taken as integral parts of religious infrastructure, they constitute both the mundane and devotional life of an individual believer and of a religious community. This trend in social research remains unnoticed in Russian social science and humanities. The forum aims to assess the state of art in the field of material religion and discuss perspectives of its development. Participants in the discussion highlight the role of the materiality of things and substances, bodies, and mechanisms in their own research and what heuristic perspectives this material turn opens for them. A separate line of discussion concerns the prospects of grafting material religion to the classic models of social research, such as Marxist sociology. Keywords: material religion, methodology of social sciences, material turn, anthropology of religion, epistemology. Acknowledgements: Mansur Gasimzianov’s contribution was prepared with the financial support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 804083, MIND: The Muslim Individual in Imperial and Soviet Russia (2019–2024)). Art Leete’s contribution was supported by the Estonian Research Council (grant no. PRG1584). Alexander A. Panchenko’s contribution was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 21-18-00508) <https://rscf.ru/project/21-18-00508/>. Yulia Senina’s contribution was supported by the Russian Science Foundation (grant no. 21-18-00508) <https://rscf.ru/project/21-18-00508/>. Laur Vallikivi’s contribution was supported by the Estonian Research Council (grant no. PRG1584). To cite: ‘Forum: Materialnyy povorot i antropologiya religii’ [Forum: The Material Turn and the Anthropology of Religion], Antropologicheskij forum, 2022, no. 55, pp. 31–152. doi: 10.31250/1815-8870-2022-18-55-31-152 URL: http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/055/forum.pdf |
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