Posts made in June, 2012
Inside outsider: Studying the religion of “others”
I’m doing a lot of thinking these days on what it means to study a religion of which you’re not a part. This has been an issue of interest to me (and to the Mormons I study) since I began ethnographic work among members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints four years ago. Still, it always catches me off guard when folks express incredulity that a non-Mormon would study Mormonism. Doesn’t that happen all the time? Isn’t it, after all, the classic anthropological model? My professor and mentor John L. Jackson Jr. studies black Hebrews… but isn’t a member of that movement. My advisor and friend Carolyn...
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