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The teaching of religion is a significant component of anthropology at Aberdeen. In addition to courses at the undergraduate level - Level 2 Anthropological Approaches to Religion and Level 4 Morality and Belief in Islam - we are launching a new postgraduate taught Master’s programme on Anthropology of Religion. Department of Anthropology staff also coordinate an interdisciplinary postgraduate research programme, funded by the University, entitled ‘Religion and Politics in the Contemporary World'. This programme provides funding for Masters of Research and PhD studentships in the fields of anthropology, political science and international relations, divinity and sociology.
Arnar Árnason, Alex King, Martin Mills, Johan Rasanayagam
While Stalinism was effective at destroying a lot of knowledge connected to shamanism, Siberian Koryaks today are still proudly “pagan” (their term), and many communities conduct annual hunting thanksgiving rituals or cremate the deceased “in the old way.” I am interested in understanding the continuing power and relevance of these practices for contemporary people, especially in terms of the communicative aspects of commensality and conversation among humans, animals, ancestors, and spirits. Much of this communication is non-linguistic and thus cannot be captured with the recording of texts. My project uses some key rituals, such as funerals and hunting thanksgiving rituals, as well as everyday practices to understand the nature and role of shamanic cosmologies and activities in Kamchatka.
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Elder Chukchi woman makes final preparations to the body on a pyre shortly before cremation while middle-aged assistant helps and learns. |
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The organisers of an Ololo ritual in Tymlat carry out the final offerings to animal spirits out of town at the arctic dawn. |
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Sacred rocks like this one in Northern Kamchatka are persons involved in social relations with human beings. |
Associated publications:
King, Alexander D. 2004. Raven Tales from Kamchatka. In Brian Swann, editor, Voices from the Four Directions. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 3-24.
------. 2002. Reindeer Herders’ Culturescapes in the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. In Erich Kasten, editor. People and Land: Pathways to Reform in Post-Soviet Siberia. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag. Pp. 63-80.
------. 2002. “Without Deer There is No Culture, Nothing”. Anthropology and Humanism. 27(2):133-164.
------. 1999. Soul Suckers: Vampiric Shamans in Northern Kamchatka, Russia. Anthropology of Consciousness.10(4):74-85.
How do individuals come to an understanding of what it means to be a Muslim in Uzbekistan? Since the end of Soviet rule there has been an explosion in interest and engagement with Islam. At the same time, the government of Islam Karimov closely monitors and regulates religious expression. Anything which does not conform to its own construction of an ‘authentic’ Central Asian tradition of Islam is severely repressed. This research explores the nature of moral reasoning through which individuals come to their own particular understandings of moral selfhood and what it means to be a Muslim, in this oppressive environment. The research looks at the nature of experience as a site for moral reasoning and argues that this is not just a cognitive, self conscious deliberation of the mind, but is inherent in ongoing experience, in participation in a social and material world.
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Associated publications:
Rasanayagam, Johan. 2011. Islam in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan: the morality of experience. Cambridge University Press
------. 2006. 'Healing with spirits and the formation of Muslim selfhood in post-Soviet Uzbekistan', Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 12(2) 377-393
------. 2006. Post-Soviet Islam: An Anthropological Perspective Special issue Central Asian Survey 25(3)
------. 2006. 'I'm not a Wahhabi! State power and Muslim Orthodoxy in Uzbekistan' in Chris Hann (ed), The Postsocialist Religious Question. Munich: Lit Verlag 99-124
Communities throughout the ethnically Tibetan regions are intimately bound to the land in a variety of ways: through trading and pilgrimage routes; through agricultural and nomadic husbandry; through ritual, shamanic practice and cosmology. This bond has influenced the form of Himalayan economies, medical practices, religious affiliations and state governance. However, despite its ubiquity, its impact on peoples’ understanding of the world is all too often overlooked next to the region’s profound and rich textual, ethical and philosophical heritage. This research looks at how we should unravel the complex relationship between these two sides of Tibetan culture, through ethnography, textual studies and historical research.
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Associated publications
Mills, Martin, 2003. Identity, Ritual and State in Tibetan Buddhism: The Foundations of Authority in Gelukpa Monasticism. London: Routledge.
------, 2009. “La double figure du moine: Monachisme et maisons”. In Herrou, A. & Krauskopff, G. (eds.). Moines et moniales de par le monde: La vie monastique au miroir de la parenté. Collection Religion et Sciences Humaines. Paris, France : Editions L'Harmattan p. 161-171.
------, 2009. “This Circle of Kings: Tibetan Visions of World Peace”. In Boundless Worlds: Anthropological Approaches to Movement. Ed. by Peter W. Kirby, Berghahn Books, 95-114.
------, 2009. “Charting the Shugden Interdiction in the Western Himalaya”. In : Alla Rivista Degli Studi Orientali. LXXX, Supplement No. 2, p. 251-269.
------, 2008. “Small Shoes and Painted Faces: Possession States and Embodiment in Buddhist Ladakh”. In Van Beek, M. & Pirie, F. (eds.), Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change. Leiden : Brill Academic Publishers p. 139-152.
------, 2007. “Re-Assessing the Supine Demoness: Royal Buddhist Geomancy in the Srong btsan sGam po Mythology.” Journal of the International Association for Tibetan Studies 3, 2007: 1-47. http://www.thlib.org/collections/texts/jiats/#jiats=/03/mills/
------, 2006. “King Srong bTsan sGam Po’s Mines: Wealth Accumulation and Religious Asceticism in Buddhist Tibet”. In The Tibet Journal. 31(4), p. 89-106.
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