Social Anthropology Seminar - Monday, 26th October 2015 - Liana Chua, University of Brunel
| Dates: | 26 October 2015 |
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| Times: | 16:00 - 18:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Social Sciences |
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| Speaker: | Liana Chua |
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Social Anthropology Seminar
Monday, 26th October 2015
4:15-6:00pm
(Tea and Coffee will be available outside the boardroom at 4:00pm)
Liana Chua, University of Brunel
If God is with us, who can be against us? Moral temporalities and Christian cosmopolitics in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo
This paper puts two recent bodies of work – the anthropology of Christianity and literature on ‘indigenous cosmopolitics’ – in dialogue by exploring Christianity as a form of political critique and engagement among Bidayuhs in Malaysian Borneo. Drawing on fieldwork on a dam-construction and resettlement project, I examine the imbrication of both God and Christian morality with a group of affected villagers’ long-running struggle to resist the whole scheme. I suggest that far from turning away from the politics of a domineering, developmentalist government, their efforts entail an attempt to reframe the terms of their engagement with the state and to forge a new kind of politics. At the same time, I consider the implications of moving beyond anthropologists’ default stance of ‘methodological atheism’ by taking God and other Christian personages seriously as agentive social presences in earthly relations and events.
2.016/2.017, Second Floor Boardroom, Arthur Lewis Building
ALL WELCOME!
Speaker
Liana Chua
Role: Speaker
Organisation: University of Brunel
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
2nd floor Boardroom - 2.016 / .017
Arthur Lewis Building
Manchester
