Anthropology of Belief 1: The Problem of Belief

Teaching - Lectures

In this, the first of two lectures on belief in anthropology, we looked at the standard model of belief in anthropology, considered empirical problems that ethnographic work has raised, and considered three categories of solution to the failure of the standard model. These categories were:

1. Universalist solutions - which seek to preserve the idea that belief is a universal capacity by refining the standard model in the light of evidence that contradicts it.
2. Particularist solutions - which claim that the concept of belief is too rooted in a particular culture (Western, or English-Language, or Euro-American, or Christian, etc.) to be useful in broader comparisons, or in describing other contexts.
3. Ethnographic solutions - which see belief as an always-situated practice, which therefore needs to be studied historically and ethnographically.

These categories need not be exclusive.

We finished the lecture by looking in more detail at universalist approaches to belief.

Attachments:

File	Description	File size
Anthropology of Belief - Lecture 1 - Presentation	Anthropology of Belief 1: The Problem of Belief	211 Kb
Anthropology of Belief - Lecture 1 - Handout	Anthropology of Belief 1: The Problem of Belief	78 Kb