Iara Cury
Week#3, Inge Daniels
03/02/2011
Religion, Ritual and Belief
Anthropologists, of all people, might not want to bring up the subject of religion at
dinner among colleagues. Known for their avowed open-mindedness and curiosity,
the necessity of applying such old-fashioned social etiquette to scholars of human
culture and society does not seem intuitive. Yet the heated debates about belief,
ritual, all sorts of religions, and exactly what each of those words mean, ever
simmering in anthropological circles, would surprise any guest uninitiated in the
arts of the anthropology of religion. In defense of these impolite intellectuals, over
the course of its history anthropology has truly attempted to develop increasingly
better approaches to the study and understanding of religion. So successful, in fact,
has this endeavor been that to propose a cohesive summary of the prolific
theoretical strands related to religion is a challenge in itself, warily undertaken in
this essay. Given that a disproportionate amount of effort has been devoted to the
belief structures and social functions of religion, the study of the actual practice,
anchored in the “secret” lives of objects, spaces and performances of religious
activity brings to light the subtle but fundamental relationships between all
elements of social life. Religion becomes something else altogether when looked
under this lens.
As in every other field of anthropology, to define well the concept of religion and to
reach the point where one is asking the right questions is more than half the battle
against the possibility of helpless confusion on the face of the enormous diversity of
“religious” phenomena around the world. Such attempts have taken much energy
and yielded diverse definitions, which for their part have fueled fruitful dialogues
about ethnocentric cultural assumptions getting in the way of a clearer
anthropology of religion. Emile Durkheim, in his book, The Elementary Forms of
Religious Life, defines religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to
sacred things…which unite into one single moral community…all those who adhere
to them” (1912, p.46). For Durkheim, religion originated from its ability to
strengthen the social solidarity of a group, and effectively divided the world into
sacred and profane spaces.
Durkheim’s functionalist definition, presupposing that religion derives its power
from some crucial function it discharges, is mirrored by certain reductionist Marxist
readings of religion, which maintain religion to be an ideology useful for the
dominant classes in terms of concealing structures of power, and as such an
instrument of social control over the masses (Bell, 1994, p.187). The view that
religion serves a tangible social purpose, be it the engendering of solidarity or
submission, in short, that religion can be reduced to other dimensions of social
analysis, has been subsequently questioned many times.
Some time ago anthropologists became interested in investigating the contents of
religion, shelving some of the speculation and theories about its social functions. In
his book, The Interpretation of Cultures, Clifford Geertz tackles the meaning of
religion, venturing to define religion as a system of symbols that affects religious
practitioners—what would come to be called the symbolist approach to religion. In
this interpretation, religion stands as the expression of the cosmological order
underlining and sustaining all other aspects of society and culture, making it
supremely important for the anthropologists to correctly map the meaning and
coherence of beliefs before seeking to understand the effects and functions of
religion. While in his time Geertz was strongly aware of the dangers of proposing
universalizing theories of religion, he remained attached to the idea that systems of
belief—or imaginaries of cosmological order—underline religious practice and
experience across the globe.
Yet with the rise of the post-structuralist movement and the new focus on practice
theory, Geertz’s definition faced quite a backlash from anthropologists such as
Malcolm Ruel and Talal Asad. In his book chapter, “Christians as Believers”, after
tracing the centrality of the idea of belief to the history and influence of Christianity
on the Western understanding of religion, Ruel doubts that there is anything
“equivalent to Christian Belief in other world religions” (1982, p.109). For him, the
very “absence of any self-conscious creedal or doctrinal component form a
commonplace observation of most, if not all, traditional or community religions”
(p.110). Asad takes a step beyond Ruel’s comprehensive argument against a belieforiented anthropology of religion. His article, “The Construction of Religion as an
Anthropological Category” puts forth the argument that universal definitions of
religion are inoperable since the diverse possibilities and power dynamics of the
phenomenon placed under the label of religion must be explained as “products of
historically distinctive disciplines and forces” (1993, p.129), not as the result of
superimposed systems of belief, ritual, political power and other elements.
What emerged from these discussions about the relationship between belief and
ritual is that the connection between these two concepts is indeterminate: “beliefs
can be understood as parasitic on activities”, or as ex post facto rationalizations as
much as activities can be the expression or the evidence for prior beliefs (Keane,
2008, p.119). While the existence of a formed body of belief, the self-awareness of
beliefs by participants and the coherence of interpretations are mere possibilities,
ritual practice of some nature is present in most cultures. The attack on the notion of
belief as something conscious, coherent or determining directs an anthropology of
religion to localize religion and to investigate particularity through the lens of
history and everyday practice much beyond exclusively religious activities.
Another proponent of a practice theory oriented interpretation of culture (but not
entirely dismissive of the idea of belief, ideology or cosmology), Catherine Bell
focuses on the connection between religion and power at the local level in her book,
Ritual Theory Ritual Practice. Working through the conceptions of belief (or religion)
as ideology and as cosmology, Bell crucially notes that whatever belief affects or
effects, it is constantly contested and negotiated by social actors with divergent
interests, who interpret the material or physical aspects of religion, that is, ritual
and practice, in a myriad of ways. These mismatching interpretations, in turn,
modify previous sets of beliefs or practice, in an endless feedback loop where the
actor is embedded in but also generative of ideology (1992, p.192). Bell would say
that Durkheim’s idea of a “single moral community” fails to grasp the ambiguity of
practice. In fact, for her, “ritual systems do not function to regulate or control the
systems of social relations, they are the system (p.130), where “complex
microrelations of power” take place (p.221).
What emerges from both Asad and Bell’s understandings of the contextual
particularity and dynamism of religious activity is the importance of placing a
research focus on practice, be it centered on materiality, phenomenology of the
body, or other micro level aspects of experience. A strong caveat must be presented,
however, before moving to ethnographic examples. Belief as understood in the West
may be hard to come by in other cultures, but anthropologists must not
underestimate the power of globalization to demand the articulation and voicing of
beliefs for the defense of localized self-determination, lest it override “incoherent”
and “backward” ways of life. At the same time, I find it impossible not to keep the
concept of cosmological order in the background when analyzing practice. At all
times of history people seem to have lived guided by a unique worldview, a
fundamental framework for self-orientation and the maintenance of ontological
security. The practice of rituals or religion, whatever they may be, is likely
connected to understandings of wellbeing, belonging, and security on the face of
quite universal experiences such as suffering, loss and change. With this in mind, it
will be productive to turn to some present-day ethnography of religion, ritual and
(elusive forms of) belief in Japanese culture.
In his book, Ancestors Worship in Contemporary Japan, Robert Smith attempts to
make sense of the diversity of rituals associated with ancestor tablets, home altars,
and mortuary rituals connected to the recent passing of a relative. Contrasting
traditional ritual and belief—the impurity of death, the transformation of the soul
from a dead spirit to an ancestor, the several burial sites, the production and
maintenance of ancestor tablets, the dates for ceremonial services of
remembrance—with modern day practice, Smith points to evidence of an
“abbreviation and attenuation of the mourning rites” (1974, p.93). In fact, after his
statistical analysis of hundreds of surveys, Smith is unable to draw strong
connections behind the variety of rituals that are still performed today. His openminded conclusion is that the “patterns of worship” might be “determined by the
personal predilections of the responsible members of the household”, consequence
of the increased “privatization of worship” (p.112-3).
Of significance in Smith’s book is the lack of general statement about the
disintegration of belief systems or a critical stance towards the individualization of
religion. Looking at the material evidence allows the anthropologist to make the
right assertions: there is rapid change, and it overlaps with tradition and
innovations in interesting ways. If traditional forms are subsiding, it might mean
that ontological security is achieved by different interpretations and experiences of
life events, which are anchored in everyday and sacred objects and actions, or it
might mean that individuals are struggling to set their cosmological imaginary to the
pace of social, economic and political changes.
Mark Rowe, in his article, “Stickers for Nails”, conveys some of the rapid changes
taking place in Japanese funerary practices. Despite his awareness that “it is
generally accepted that the rapid urbanization and modernization…caused a decline
in traditional values and knowledge in Japan” (2000, p.359), Rowe does not shy
away from taking current rituals seriously, producing a careful account of the role of
spaces, objects, performance and information on the experience of death for
families. He posits three main findings: an “increasing physical separation between
mourner and corpse”; “the effects of new technologies on both the funeral process
and symbols”; and “the ongoing individualization of the deceased” (p.354). Leaving
behind traditional ideas about religion allows the anthropologist to understand how
the new sites for funerals and new crematoriums, the changing roles of the priest
and sogisha, and the transformation in the handling of and the services performed
for the deceased—how practices associated with religion—arise from “societal,
scientific, religious, and consumer forces” (p.375) without losing their power to
create dynamic, and possibly cosmologically comforting meanings about death and
the corpse.
The key point here is that “new forms emerge that both lead to and reflect new
attitudes and beliefs” (Rowe, 2000, p.374). Images, movement, behaviors and
objects are experienced, interpreted, and re-staged at later times, sometimes
through similar forms, sometimes through new forms. Meanings derived from these
fluctuating forms will be appropriated by the individual, ordered and placed in his
or her constellation of experiences and beliefs. It is thus that the boundaries
between ritual and service may disappear and spiritual efficacy and ritual efficiency
become interchangeable concepts in the minds of participants of Japanese funerals.
The wonder of material approaches to the study of religion is that the initial
concreteness and palpability of phenomena allow for and give way to the
recognition of the diversity of (unholy) forces, functions and interpretations
inextricably tied together in the real world to what we naively call religion. While
belief and ritual will not cease to be valuable entry points to the understanding of
religious experience and everyday behavior, it would be wise to let the material
world speak for itself and hear what unexpected things it has to say.
Bibliography
Asad, T., 1993. “The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category” In M.
Lambek (ed.) 2002. A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. Oxford:
Blackwell. Ch.8.
Bell, C., 1992. Ritual Theory Ritual Practice. Oxford: OUP.
Durkheim, E., 1912. “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life” In M. Lambek (ed.)
2002 A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Ch.2
Geertz, E., 1966. “Religion as a Cultural System” In M. Lambek (ed.) 2002. A Reader
in the Anthropology of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Ch.4.
Keane, W. 2008. ‘The Evidence of the Senses and the Materiality of Religion’ In JRAI
14: 110-27.
Rowe, M. 2000. Stickers for Nails: The ongoing Transformation of Roles, Rites, and
Symbols in Japanese Funerals. In Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27/3-4.
Ruel, M., 1982 “Christians as Believers” In M. Lambek (ed.) 2002. A Reader in the
Anthropology of Religion. Oxford: Blackwell. Ch.7.
Smith, R. 1974. Chapter 3: Caring for the Dead. In Ancestors Worship in
Contemporary Japan. Stanford University.