Social Anthropology Seminar - Dr Katherine Swancutt (King's College London)
| Dates: | 22 February 2016 |
|---|
| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
|---|
| What is it: | Seminar |
|---|
| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
|---|
| Speaker: | Dr Katherine Swancutt |
|---|
|
|
Title : Religion through the Looking Glass: Fieldwork, Biography and Esprit de Corps in Southwest China and Beyond
This paper is an exploration into the excess of fascination with studies of religion that traverses the biographies of researchers who, through fieldwork, episodically enter into the religious life-worlds of the peoples they study. In it, I offer up ethnographic and auto-ethnographic reflections on the experiential crossroads and personal biographies which are perhaps as constitutive of religion as they are of the persons who study it. Through a cinematic presentation of interconnected vignettes that arose during and outside of my anthropological fieldwork on ‘animism’ among the Nuosu, a Tibeto-Burman group of Southwest China, I highlight how certain poetic events have brought Nuosu religion, ‘culture’, and its international import further into focus for myself and my interlocutors. My argument pivots around the idea that fieldwork – especially when devoted to the study of religion – often elicits an ‘esprit de corps’ that unexpectedly shapes the unique biographies and research findings of the persons who undertake it.
2.016/2.017, Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
(Tea and Coffee will be available outside the boardroom at 4pm)
All welcome.
Speaker
Dr Katherine Swancutt
Organisation: King's College London
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2nd floor Boardroom 2.06 / 017
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
