Missionary Impositions: Conversion, Resistance, and other Challenges to Objectivity in Religious Ethnography - Paperback

by Hillary K. Crane (Editor), Deana Weibel (Editor)

The essays composed in this book encompass ethnographic fieldwork in Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and other populations, addressing such topics as the fluidity of the anthropologist's own religious identity, objectivity versus subjectivity, the issue of reflexivity in ethnography, and the multi-positionality of the researcher.

Author Biography

Hillary K. Crane is an associate professor of anthropology at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. Her research includes areas where religious and medical discourses intersect or conflict, primarily on the subject of gender construction. Deana L. Weibel is an associate professor of anthropology, as well as chair of the anthropology department, at Grand Valley State University. She studies contemporary pilgrimage to Roman Catholic shrines, particularly in France, as well as the reinterpretation of these shrines by "religious creatives," pilgrims who practice intentional syncretism in highly individualized ways.