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Introduction. Fieldwork in religion. Bodily experience and ethnographic knowledge
Get PDFThis Introduction presents the main arguments debated in this Special Issue upon the construction of ethnographic knowledge in researching among participants of religious and spiritual groups through the lenses of bodily experience, addressing the empirical, ethical, epistemological, relational, political and analytical implications of this significant aspect of fieldwork. We ask specifically how does the ethnographer's experience of researching among these groups inform the production of ethnographic knowledge? In which way does it redefine our analytical categories, and the way we approach the experiences of participants in these groups? Up to which extent do our interlocutors expects us to know about their experiences and practices? When it comes to religious and spiritual experience these questions seem to enter an insidious territory challenging established categories, such as ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’, ‘body’, ‘self’ and ‘personhood’, ‘health’ and ‘illness’; categories which we argue that should arise from the felt immediacy of the field. Eventually we address ethnography as a dispositive that throughout the research process not only involves the ‘intellectual’ activity of the scholar, but also the researcher as person and agent whose theoretical task should also include the empirical research on his/her experience of knowing and becoming in the field, considering the flow of relationships established with those ‘others’ in many ways who participate in the ‘project of knowing’ and constitute the raison d'être of ethnographic research
Embodied epistemologies of healing. Introduction
No full textThis Introduction, written by the three editors of the volume, argues for a phenomenologically participative stance on the part of the anthropologist of spirit possession and mediation. We begin with a critique of homogeneous notions of both “person” and “spirit” in possession studies, asking how an immersive participative observation method on the part of scholars can both contribute to an understanding and raise questions about the anthropological enterprise itself. We argue that we need to think and feel through alterity with embodied understandings or imagery or metaphors that open up, rather close, or resolve inquiry. The idea of “extraordinary experiences” itself needs to be rethought, perhaps into one that recognizes that scholars, too, are intrinsic to the incipient and temporal movement of all social forms. We then argue that transformative engagements with the field can signal ways that personal scholarly experience of the “unknown” shapes the concepts by which we craft out analysis. We reflect, in particular, upon a concept of 'epistemological embodiment', or, on how these experiences may impact our conceptions of knowing and of how this knowing is produced. In particular, we formulate a framework that points to how our own conceptual and epistemological understandings of the field are embedded within our own bodily experiences, arrangements, trajectories, and serendipities
Espiritualidade, terapia e cura: um estudo sobre a expressão da experiência no santo daime
Get PDFDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia SocialO Céu da Mantiqueira é uma comunidade do Santo Daime filiada ao CEFLURIS (Centro Eclético de Fluente Luz Universal Raimundo Irineu Serra) e localizada no sul do estado de Minas Gerais. Neste trabalho, a partir da análise das expressões das experiências dos participantes desta comunidade registradas na forma de desenhos e narrativas - procuro levantar e definir as principais categorias culturais envolvidas na experiência dos processos de cura, saúde e doença para os participantes do Céu da Mantiqueira e compreender estas categorias em suas relações com os procedimentos terapêuticos grupais, buscando identificar os modelos que motivam e sustentam estes procedimentos e categorias culturais. Também procuro situar no contexto das relações sociais e procedimentos terapêuticos as pessoas que trabalham profissionalmente na área da saúde. A temática da cura foi definida a partir de interesses que me parecem centrais para os participantes do Céu da Mantiqueira. Ao longo da trajetória desta comunidade, vários acontecimentos apontam para a construção e reconstrução de uma identidade coletiva enquanto centro de cura. Esta identidade encontra-se ancorada na história do grupo, em interação com a práxis de seus participantes. No Céu da Mantiqueira, espiritualidade e terapia são concebidas e vivenciadas como dimensões que se interpenetram e estão intimamente relacionadas. Observando esta imbricação entre o espiritual e o terapêutico, identifiquei um duplo movimento, convergente e simultâneo, de terapeutização da espiritualidade e espiritualização dos procedimentos terapêuticos. Levanto, assim, a hipótese de que o modelo que fundamenta os procedimentos terapêuticos existentes no Céu da Mantiqueira é o de um continuum espiritual-terapêutico, com a doutrina daimista em um de seus pólos e os procedimentos terapêuticos e as pessoas que trabalham profissionalmente na área da saúde no outro. A substância que circula entre estes dois pólos é formada pelos valores que provém de ambos. Estes valores fundamentam os procedimentos espirituais e terapêuticos. Devido à ênfase na integração entre espiritualidade e terapia, este modelo difere do modelo predominante na biomedicina oficial, baseado no paradigma cartesiano que separa mente e corpo. Penso que o modelo do continuum espiritual-terapêutico pode ajudar a compreender as práticas de cuidados da saúde existentes na contemporaneidade em outros contextos, onde também há uma intersecção entre novas formas de espiritualidade e procedimentos terapêuticos
Tempos e saúde na União do Vegetal (UDV)
Get PDFDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Antropologia Social, Florianópolis, 2014.Este trabalho é uma apresentação de reflexões e experiências de uma trajetória de pesquisa em ambos os campos (religioso e acadêmico), que possui como núcleo a análise das categorias, marcações e funções do "tempo" nas práticas e rituais da União do Vegetal (UDV), procurando conhecer e compreender as formas particulares que assume a relação ritual-saúde nesse contexto. A UDV é uma das religiões de origem brasileira que utiliza ayahuasca, substância psicoativa que é chamada hoasca ou vegetal. A descrição dos estados de consciência não-ordinários induzidos pela utilização de psicoativos muitas vezes faz referência a percepções alternativas do espaço, do transcorrer do tempo, de fenômenos inusitados e místicos. Estas percepções podem ser compartilhadas por todo um coletivo. Entre outras conseqüências, a cura ou alívio de doenças físicas ou psíquicas podem também acontecer como resultado das práticas sociais que utilizam estas substâncias. Examinei as questões numa trajetória de pesquisa particular e heterodoxa, na qual fui construindo uma abordagem qualitativa. Principalmente, fiz trabalho de campo no Núcleo Estrela d´Alva (Florianópolis) nos anos de 2005-2006, ainda que conheci distintos locais do grupo, antes e depois, em diferentes lugares do país. Realizo uma abordagem metodológica próxima à etnografia estrategicamente situada, produto não totalmente voluntário deste percorrido de campo. Nos conteúdos argumentais, utilizo "tempos" no plural procurando manter a multi-dimensionalidade e certa indeterminação analítica no conceito, diferenciando assim das particulares apropriações disciplinares e significações (filosóficas, físicas, químicas, sociais, culturais) do "tempo". Também, esboço reflexões que apontam à emergência, na UDV, de uma percepção cosmológica evolutiva e Universal. A saúde, nesse contexto, parece ser simultaneamente, um resultado do comportamento pessoal seguindo as normas morais do grupo e um bem precioso que precisa ser cuidado.Abstract : This work is a presentation of reflections and experiences of a trajectory of research in both fields (religious and academic), which focuses in the analysis of categories, tags and functions of "time" in the practices and rituals of the União do Vegetal (UDV ), seeking to know and understand the particular forms that assumes the relation between ritual and health in this context. The UDV is one of the religions originated in Brazil that uses ayahuasca, a psychoactive substance that is called hoasca or vegetal. The description of the non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by use of psychoactive often makes reference to alternative perceptions of space, time, and unusual mystical phenomena. These insights can be shared by a whole collective. Among other consequences, the cure or alleviation of physical or mental illnesses can also happen as a result of social practices that use these substances. I examined the issues in a particular trajectory and an heterodox research, in which I built a qualitative approach. Mainly, I did fieldwork in Núcleo Estrela d´Alva (Florianópolis) in the years 2005-2006, although I met different sites of the group, before and after, in different places of Brazil. I use an approach next to ethnography strategically situated. In this work, I use "times" in plural in an attempt to keep the multi-dimensionality and certain analytical indetermination of the concept, differing from particular disciplinary appropriations and meanings (philosophical, physical, chemical, social, cultural) of "time". I sketch reflections pointing to the emergence, in the UDV, a perception of cosmological and "Universal evolution". Health in this context seems to be both a result of personal behaviour following the moral norms of the group and a precious good that needs to be cared
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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