Embodied Research and Writing: A Case for Phenomenologically Oriented Religious Studies Ethnographies

摘要

In this article, I examine anthropological and phenomenological the-nories and scholarship that recognize our bodies and our interlocutor’snbodies as texts that we can “read” to better understand ourselves andnthe lifeworlds our interlocutors inhabit. Drawing on my own ethno-ngraphic research and taking my cue from phenomenologists, I arguenthat Religious Studies ethnographers must look to their bodies as wellnas their interlocutors’ bodies as sources of knowledge. When we drawnon our experiences and observations then we are truly writing empiri-ncally based scholarship. The ethnographer is grounded in her body,nand her body is entwined with her interlocutors’ bodies and, by exten-nsion, their lifeworlds. Moreover, the body can be a vehicle for compli-ncating, at times even transcending, emic (insider) and etic (outsider)nboundaries. To ignore our embodied interactions with others in thenfield when we write is to occlude lived experience and how our bodiesnare epistemological sites that allow us privileged access into our interlo-ncutor’s worlds. “Our” bodies are ways for understanding “others” life-nworlds. When we take a reflexive turn in our written work, wenacknowledge this embodiment and connections, and yield greaterninsight into religion as it is lived.