Journal article
Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol.79(2), pp.378-407
2011
DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfq079
Abstract
In this article, I examine anthropological and phenomenological theories and scholarship that recognize our bodies and our interlocutor's bodies as texts that we can "read" to better understand ourselves and the lifeworlds our interlocutors inhabit. Drawing on my own ethnographic research and taking my cue from phenomenologists, I argue that Religious Studies ethnographers must look to their bodies as well as their interlocutors' bodies as sources of knowledge. When we draw on our experiences and observations then we are truly writing empirically based scholarship. The ethnographer is grounded in her body, and her body is entwined with her interlocutors' bodies and, by extension, their lifeworlds. Moreover, the body can be a vehicle for complicating, at times even transcending, emic (insider) and etic (outsider) boundaries. To ignore our embodied interactions with others in the field when we write is to occlude lived experience and how our bodies are epistemological sites that allow us privileged access into our interlocutor's worlds. "Our" bodies are ways for understanding "others" lifeworlds. When we take a reflexive turn in our written work, we acknowledge this embodiment and connections, and yield greater insight into religion as it is lived. © The Author 2010.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies
- Creators
- Kristy NABHAN-WARREN - Augustana College
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol.79(2), pp.378-407
- DOI
- 10.1093/jaarel/lfq079
- ISSN
- 0002-7189
- eISSN
- 1477-4585
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2011
- Academic Unit
- Classics and Religious Studies; History; Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984255155202771
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