RESEARCHING HUMANS OR RESEARCHING GOD? A ROUNDTABLE ON FIELDWORK IN RELIGIOUS SETTINGS

Main Article Content

Yichi Zhang

Abstract

This article is the second of two roundtable discussions on fieldwork. It centres on fieldworkers conducting research in religious sites. The discussants share both their encounters and their reflections on engaging with spiritual agents, where the blurring of boundaries between anthropological and theological perspectives increasingly challenges secular anthropological presuppositions. As fieldwork becomes infused with embodied religiosities, anthropology itself begins to resemble a spiritual practice. In many cases, encounters with religion in the field have not only enriched academic understanding but also profoundly affected the researcher’s sense of self, a challenge that anthropologists working in this thematic area (and beyond it) must continually reckon with.

Article Details

Section
Articles