Matthew Engelke

"First published in Great Britain in 2017 as Think like an anthropologist by the Penguin Group"--Copyright page.

How to Think Like an Anthropologist

What is anthropology? What can it tell us about culture and the world around us? And why do we need it? For well over one hundred years, social and cultural anthropologists have traversed the world from Melanesia to suburban England, Taipei to Wall Street, uncovering surprising facts, patterns, predilections and, sometimes, the inexplicable, in terms of how humans organize their lives and articulate their values. By weaving together theories and examples from around the world, Matthew Engelke brilliantly shows why anthropology matters: not only because it helps us understand other points of view, but also because in the process, it reveals something about ourselves too.

Think Like an Anthropologist

كيف تفكر كأنثروبولوجي

Part of The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Special Issue Book Series, the contributors to this volume share the conviction that anthropology can no longer afford to ignore the importance of the concept of evidence, either for the ways in which anthropologists carry out their work (methodology) or present and justify their findings (epistemology). Demonstrates that evidence is something that all anthropologists must possess Shows how the collection of evidence in the field is still, without doubt, one of the main ingredients of what Bronislaw Malinowski once referred to as 'the ethnographer’s magic' Reveals how the concept of evidence has received little sustained attention in print – especially when compared to related concepts, such as 'fieldwork', 'truth', 'facts', and 'knowledge' Argued from a variety of theoretical perspectives and a rarity in its ability to orchestrate some many different – and vibrant – paradigms and points of view

Anthropological Approaches to the Production of Knowledge

The Objects of Evidence

The British and Foreign Bible Society is one of the most illustrious Christian charities in the United Kingdom. Founded by evangelicals in the early nineteenth century and inspired by developments in printing technology, its goal has always been to make Bibles universally available. Over the past several decades, though, Bible Society has faced a radically different world, especially in its work in England. Where the Society once had a grateful and engaged reading public, it now faces apathy—even antipathy—for its cause. These days, it seems, no one in England wants a Bible, and no one wants other people telling them they should: religion is supposed to be a private matter. Undeterred, these Christians attempt to spark a renewed interest in the Word of God. They’ve turned away from publishing and toward publicity to "make the Bible heard." God’s Agents is a study of how religion goes public in today’s world. Based on over three years of anthropological research, Matthew Engelke traces how a small group of socially committed Christians tackle the challenge of publicity within what they understand to be a largely secular culture. In the process of telling their story, he offers an insightful new way to think about the relationships between secular and religious formations: our current understanding of religion needs to be complemented by greater attention to the process of generating publicity. Engelke argues that we are witnessing the dynamics of religious publicity, which allows us to see the ways in which conceptual divides such as public/private, religious/secular, and faith/knowledge are challenged and redefined by social actors on the ground.

Biblical Publicity in Contemporary England

God's Agents

The Friday Masowe apostolics of Zimbabwe refer to themselves as "the Christians who don’t read the Bible." They claim they do not need the Bible because they receive the Word of God "live and direct" from the Holy Spirit. In this insightful and sensitive historical ethnography, Matthew Engelke documents how this rejection of scripture speaks to longstanding concerns within Christianity over mediation and authority. The Bible, of course, has been a key medium through which Christians have recognized God’s presence. But the apostolics perceive scripture as an unnecessary, even dangerous, mediator. For them, the materiality of the Bible marks a distance from the divine and prohibits the realization of a live and direct faith. Situating the Masowe case within a broad comparative framework, Engelke shows how their rejection of textual authority poses a problem of presence—which is to say, how the religious subject defines, and claims to construct, a relationship with the spiritual world through the semiotic potentials of language, actions, and objects. Written in a lively and accessible style, A Problem of Presence makes important contributions to the anthropology of Christianity, the history of religions in Africa, semiotics, and material culture studies.

Matthew Engelke

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