RELIGST 2WW3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Marcel Mauss, Astral Projection, Therapeutic Touch
15 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Class 1b: theories of disease and religious healing. Our course approaches the topic of religion and healing from the perspective of anthropology of religion and medical anthro. We try to understand human phenomena from the perspective of people inside a particular culture. Goal of anthropologist: to be embedded in a culture and understand it from their point of view. Anthropology is concerned with the fundamental question of what it means to be a human being, whole and healthy or distressed and diseased. (csordas, p. 333) Early anthropologists are criticized for not truly embedding themselves into the cultures being studied, and were observed from an outsider perspective (etic), not from the perspective of somebody within the culture itself (emic) Observations are made based on extended eldwork in a given community. Emic perspective: from the perspective of the insider/subject. Etic perspective: from the perspective of the outsider/observer. The task of the anthropologist is to draw from both emic and etic perspectives.
