Asceticism, Fieldwork and Technologies of the Self in Latin American Catholic Monasticism
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v1i2.145Keywords:
fieldwork, methodology, adaption-participationAbstract
This article analyses and proposes a methodological strategy—namely, adaptation-participation—for approaching ethnographically religious settings. This procedure is based on the adoption of native technologies of the self for reaching the numinous, which supposes a process of accommodation and re-socialization of the ethnographer to the field. By focusing on ascetic technologies carried out in Benedictine monastic communities of Latin America—i.e., silence and lectio divina–this study demonstrates how their use for social research grants ethnographic entrance into the cultural milieu of monasteries. In this sense, this investigation also reveals closeness between asceticism and fieldwork defined by the Socratic principle of care of oneself, which is constituted by technologies that subjects carry on over themselves. To summarize, this work argues that the adoption of vernacular technologies of the self through adaptation-participation bridges ontologies between fieldworker and Other’s culture by producing intimacy with subjects’ experience. This strategy of adaptation-participation might also be applied in non-monastic contexts or, rather, not necessarily religious contexts.
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References
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Ebaugh, H.R., and P. Ritterband, 1978, ‘Education and the Exodus from Convents’. Sociological Analysis 39: 257-64.
Engen, J.V., 1986, ‘The “Crisis of Cenobitism” Reconsidered: Benedictine Monasticism in the Years 1050–1150’. Speculum 61: 269-304.
Emerson, R., R. Fretz, and L. Shaw, 1995, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
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Martin, L., H. Gutman, and P. Hutton (eds.), 1988, Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
Matthei, M., 1980, ‘Implantación del Monacato Benedictino Cisterciense en el Cono Sur’. Cuadernos Monásticos 52: 21-128.
Mauss, M., ‘Técnicas y movimientos corporales’. In C. Lévi-Strauss (ed.), Sociología y Antropología. Madrid: Tecnos, 1971 [1936]: 337-56.
Merleau-Ponty, M., 1993, Fenomenología de la Percepción. Madrid: Planeta-Agostini.
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Passmore, J., 1970, The Perfectibility of Man. London: Duckworth.
Peire, J., 2000, El Taller de los Espejos: Iglesia e Imaginario 1767–1815. Buenos Aires: Editorial Claridad.
Reidhead, V.A., 1993, ‘Structure and Anti-Structure in Monasticism and Anthropology: Epistemological Parallels and Adaptive Models’. Anthropology of Consciousness 2: 9-22.
Ricoeur, P., 1980, La Metáfora Viva. Madrid: Ediciones Europa.
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Rosenwein, B.H., and L.K. Little, 1974, ‘Social Meaning in the Monastic and Mendicant Spiritualities’. Past and Present 63: 4-32.
Russell, K.C., 1995, ‘Paul Ricoeur on Lectio Divina’. Église et Théologie 26: 331-44.
Scholte, B., ‘Toward a Reflexive and Critical Anthropology’. In Hymes, D. (ed.), Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972: 430-57.
Stark, R., and R. Finke, 2000, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stoller, P., 1989, The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tannen, D., and M. Saville-Troike (eds.), 1985, Perspectives on Silence. Norwood: Ablex Publishing.
Teasdale, W., 2002, A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life. Novato: New World Library.
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—1985, On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
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Umiker-Sebeok, J., and T.A. Sebeok (eds.), 1987, Monastic Sign Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Weber, M., 1996, Economía y Sociedad: Esbozo de Sociología Compresiva. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Wittberg, P., 1994, The Rise and Decline of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective. Albany: The State University of New York Press.
Wolcott, H.F., 1999, Ethnography: A Way of Seeing. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Wright, P.G., 1994, ‘Experiencia, Intersubjetividad y Existencia: Hacia una Teoría-Práctica de la Etnografía’. Runa XXI: 347-80.
Bourdieu, P., 1991, El Sentido Práctico. Madrid: Taurus.
Brown, P., 1988, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bynum, C.W., 1982, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley and London: University of California Press.
Dillon, C., 1999, ‘Lectio Divina in the Monastic Tradition’. Cistercian Studies Quarterly 34(3): 31120.
Di Stefano, R., and L. Zanatta, 2000, Historia de la Iglesia Argentina. Buenos Aires: GrijalboMondadori.
Dussel, E., 1967. ‘Outline of a History of the Church in Latin America’. Social Compass XIV (5-6): 343-63.
Ebaugh, H.R., 1977, Out of the Cloister: A Study of Organizational Dilemmas. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.
—1993, ‘The Growth and Decline of Catholic Orders of Women Worldwide: The Impact of Women’s Opportunity Structures’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 32: 68-75.
Ebaugh, H.R., J. Lorence, and J.S. Chafetz, 1996, ‘The Growth and Decline of the Population of Catholic Nuns Cross-Nationally, 1960–90: A Case of Secularization as Social Structural Change’. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 35: 171-83.
Ebaugh, H.R., and P. Ritterband, 1978, ‘Education and the Exodus from Convents’. Sociological Analysis 39: 257-64.
Engen, J.V., 1986, ‘The “Crisis of Cenobitism” Reconsidered: Benedictine Monasticism in the Years 1050–1150’. Speculum 61: 269-304.
Emerson, R., R. Fretz, and L. Shaw, 1995, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Fabian, J., 1971, ‘Language, History and Anthropology’. Journal for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences 1(1): 19-47.
—1983, Time and the Other: How Anthropology makes its Object. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fabian, J. (ed.), 1991, Time and the Work of Anthropology: Critical Essays 1971–1991. Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Flew, R.N., 1968, The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology: An Historical Study of the Christian Ideal for the Present Life. New York: Humanities Press.
Foley, N., 1999, ‘Locus of Authority in the Religious Congregation: Implications of Religious Life as Charism’. In N. Foley (ed.), Journey in Faith and Fidelity: Women Shaping Religious Life for a Renewed Church. New York: Continuum: 124-38.
—(ed.), 1999, Journey in Faith and Fidelity: Women Shaping Religious Life for a Renewed Church. New York: Continuum
Foucault, M., 1991, Tecnologías del Ser y Otros Textos Afines. Barcelona: Paidós.
—1993, ‘About the Beginning of the Hermeneutics of the Self: Two Lectures at Dartmouth’. Political Theory 21(2): 128-227.
Grimshaw, A., 2001, The Ethnographer’s Eye: Ways of Seeing in Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hillery, G.A., 1992, The Monastery: A Study in Freedom, Love, and Community. Westport: Praeger.
Huizing, P., and W. Bassett (eds.), 1974, The Future of the Religious Life. New York: The Seabury Press.
Jackson, M., 1998, Minima Ethnographica. Intersubjectivity and the Anthropological Project. Chicago and London: The Chicago University Press.
—(ed.), 1996, Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Jaworski, A. (ed.), 1997, Silence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
King, P., 1999, Western Monasticism: A History of the Monastic Movement in the Latin Church. Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications.
Knowles, D., 1969, Christian Monasticism. New York: World University Library.
Lafont, G., 1974, ‘The Institution of Religious Celibacy’. In P. Huizing and W. Bassett (eds.), The Future of the Religious Life. New York: The Seabury Press: 49-58.
Lekai, L.J., 1977, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality. Kent: Kent State University Press.
Ludueña, G.A., 2002a, ‘El Silencio como práctica de Ascesis corporal en una comunidad de monjes benedictinos’. Quaderns de l’Institut Catalá d’Antropología 17-18: 65-78.
—2002b, ‘Etnografía, habitus y forma de vida: Una experiencia de campo en comunidades religiosas de clausura’. Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional de Antropología y Pensamiento Latinoamericano 19: 365-84.
—‘Etnografía del espacio en monasterios de clausura en la Argentina’. In G. Wilde and P. Schamber (eds.), Simbolismo, Ritual y Performance. Buenos Aires: SB, Forthcoming.
Marcus, G., 1995, ‘Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography’. Annual Review of Anthropology 24: 95-117.
Martin, L., 1988, ‘Technologies of the Self and Self-Knowledge in the Syrian Thomas Tradition’. In L. Martin, H. Gutman, and P. Hutton (eds.), Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press: 50-63.
Martin, L., H. Gutman, and P. Hutton (eds.), 1988, Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
Matthei, M., 1980, ‘Implantación del Monacato Benedictino Cisterciense en el Cono Sur’. Cuadernos Monásticos 52: 21-128.
Mauss, M., ‘Técnicas y movimientos corporales’. In C. Lévi-Strauss (ed.), Sociología y Antropología. Madrid: Tecnos, 1971 [1936]: 337-56.
Merleau-Ponty, M., 1993, Fenomenología de la Percepción. Madrid: Planeta-Agostini.
Otto, R., 1998, Lo Santo: Lo Racional y lo Irracional en la Idea de Dios. Madrid: Alianza.
Passmore, J., 1970, The Perfectibility of Man. London: Duckworth.
Peire, J., 2000, El Taller de los Espejos: Iglesia e Imaginario 1767–1815. Buenos Aires: Editorial Claridad.
Reidhead, V.A., 1993, ‘Structure and Anti-Structure in Monasticism and Anthropology: Epistemological Parallels and Adaptive Models’. Anthropology of Consciousness 2: 9-22.
Ricoeur, P., 1980, La Metáfora Viva. Madrid: Ediciones Europa.
—1985, Hermenéutica y Acción. Buenos Aires: Editorial Docencia.
—1994, Fe y Filosofía: Problemas del Lenguaje Religioso. Buenos Aires: Almagesto y Docencia.
Rosenwein, B.H., and L.K. Little, 1974, ‘Social Meaning in the Monastic and Mendicant Spiritualities’. Past and Present 63: 4-32.
Russell, K.C., 1995, ‘Paul Ricoeur on Lectio Divina’. Église et Théologie 26: 331-44.
Scholte, B., ‘Toward a Reflexive and Critical Anthropology’. In Hymes, D. (ed.), Reinventing Anthropology. New York: Pantheon Books, 1972: 430-57.
Stark, R., and R. Finke, 2000, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stoller, P., 1989, The Taste of Ethnographic Things: The Senses in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Tannen, D., and M. Saville-Troike (eds.), 1985, Perspectives on Silence. Norwood: Ablex Publishing.
Teasdale, W., 2002, A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life. Novato: New World Library.
Turner, V.W., 1974, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
—1985, On the Edge of the Bush: Anthropology as Experience. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Turner, V.W., and E. Bruner (eds.), 1986, The Anthropology of Experience. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Umiker-Sebeok, J., and T.A. Sebeok (eds.), 1987, Monastic Sign Languages. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Weber, M., 1996, Economía y Sociedad: Esbozo de Sociología Compresiva. México: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Wittberg, P., 1994, The Rise and Decline of Catholic Religious Orders: A Social Movement Perspective. Albany: The State University of New York Press.
Wolcott, H.F., 1999, Ethnography: A Way of Seeing. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Wright, P.G., 1994, ‘Experiencia, Intersubjetividad y Existencia: Hacia una Teoría-Práctica de la Etnografía’. Runa XXI: 347-80.
Published
2005-09-01
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
A. Ludueña, G. (2005). Asceticism, Fieldwork and Technologies of the Self in Latin American Catholic Monasticism. Fieldwork in Religion, 1(2), 145-164. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v1i2.145
