Constructing Religion as an Anthropological Category

Year 2007, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 103 - 137, 01.01.2007

Talal Asad

Abstract

This article tries to sketch the emergence of religion as a modern historical object for a wider outlining the genealogy of religion. Thus the ways in which the theoretical search for an essence of religion invites us to separate it conceptually from the domain of power is examined. This is tried to be made by exploring a universalist definition of religion offered by an eminent anthropologist, namely Clifford Geertz’s Religion as a Cultural System. The aim of this article is to try to identify some of the historical shifts that have produced our concept of religion as the concept of a trans-historical essence. One of the basic argument suggested here is that socially identifiable forms, preconditions, and effects of what was regarded as religion in the medieval Christian epoch were quite different from those so considered in modern society.

Keywords

Antropology of religion, religion as a cultural system, religion in modern period.

Antropolojik Bir Kategori Olarak Dinin İnşası

Abstract

Bu makale daha geniş bir dinin soy kütükleri tasarımı çerçevesi için, dinin modern tarihsel bir nesne olarak ortaya çıkışını resmetmeye çalışıyor. Böylece dine bir öz bulma yolundaki teorik çabanın, dini, iktidar alanından kavramsal olarak ayırmak için başvurduğu yöntemler sorgulamaya tabi tutulmaktadır. Bu da, meşhur bir antropolog Clifford Geertz’in “Kültürel Sistem Olarak Din” esprisi altında teklif edilen evrenselci din tanımını incelemek suretiyle yapılacaktır. Temel argüman ortaçağ Hıristiyanlığı döneminde din telakki edilen şeye dair toplumsal düzeyde saptayabileceğimiz formlar, önkoşullar ve etkiler ile modern dönemde din telakki edilenlerin aslında son derece farklı olgular olduklarıdır.

Keywords

Din antropolojisi, kültürel bir sistem olarak din, modern dönemde din.

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