Teología etnográfica: integración de las Ciencias Sociales y la reflexión teológica
Barra lateral del artículo
Publicado: jun 6, 2022
Descargas
Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0.
Contenido principal del artículo
Resumen
Los teólogos están adoptando ampliamente la investigación etnográfica para realizar su trabajo teológico. Sin embargo, dado que la mayoría de ellos no están suficientemente capacitados en métodos científicos sociales, su sofisticación con esta metodología es limitada, lo que genera distorsiones en las observaciones registradas y las interpretaciones ofrecidas. Este ensayo busca abordar esta falta de profundidad al articular algunas de las sensibilidades más esenciales que son cruciales para las mejores prácticas asociadas con la erudición ejemplar que emerge en la intersección entre la etnografía y la teología. Entre las distinciones más importantes que los teólogos deben reconocer está una distinción simple y heurística entre “teologías encontradas” y “teologías impuestas”. Los etnógrafos saben que reportar nuestros hallazgos siempre implica examinar de manera cuidadosa las suposiciones que pueden restringir involuntariamente lo que reconocemos, sin hablar de “lo que vemos”. La distinción ofrecida entre “teologías encontradas” y “teologías impuestas” sirve para recordar a los trabajadores de campo preocupados por la teología que los ideales y prejuicios no examinados, así como los valores y las convicciones profundamente arraigados, pueden dirigir radicalmente nuestra atención y remodelar creativamente nuestras percepciones. También permite un enfoque perspicaz sobre la dinámica del poder, así como la inclusión de los pueblos marginados. Mi modesto objetivo, por lo tanto, es equipar mejor a los académicos teológicamente orientados para producir obras originales, social y científicamente concienzudas, mas sustancialmente ricas y responsables que innoven aún más el uso de la metodología de las ciencias sociales entre los teólogos. En última instancia, al fundamentar aún más la ética de la práctica etnográfica entre teólogos, los estudiantes y los académicos acentuarán la integridad de los hallazgos y producirán corrientes de erudición que fomentarán las teologías insospechadas y urgentemente necesitadas del futuro.
Detalles del artículo
Referencias
Adams, N., & Elliot, C. (2000). Ethnography is dogmatics: Making description central to systematic theology. Scottish Journal of Theology (53), 339-364. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930600051024
Ammerman, Nancy T., Jackson W. Carroll, Carl S. Dudley & William McKinney, eds. (1998). Studying Congregations: A New Handbook. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Baker, Joseph O., Gerardo Martí, Ruth Braunstein, Andrew L Whitehead, & Grace Yukich. (2020). Religion in the Age of Social Distancing: How COVID-19 Presents New Directions for Research. Sociology of Religion 81(4), 357–370. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/sraa004
Bender, Courtney. (2003). Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226042831.001.0001
Berger, Peter L. and Thomas Luckmann. (1966). The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge, New York: Doubleday.
Blake, James. (1999). Overcoming the 'Value-Action Gap' in Environmental Policy: Tensions between National Policy and Local Experience. Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability (4), 257–278. https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839908725599
Blumer, H. (1931). Science Without Concepts. American Journal of Sociology (36), 515-533. https://doi.org/10.1086/215473
Bretherton, Luke. (2012). Coming to judgment: Methodological reflections on the relationship between ecclesiology, ethnography and political theory. Modern Theology 28(2), 167–196. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2012.01736.x
Brophy, Sorcha A. (2016). Orthodoxy as Project: Temporality and Action in an American Protestant Denomination. Sociology of Religion 77(2), 123-143. https://doi.org/10.1093/socrel/srw011
Bruner, Jerome. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Davaney, Sheila Greeve. (2000). Pragmatic Historicism: A Theology for the Twenty-First Century. Albany, NY: State University Press of New York.
Eastman, Carol M. (1985). “Establishing Social Identity through Language Use.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology (4), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X8500400101
Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. (2007). Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296477.001.0001
Gutiérrez, Gustavo. (1993). Las Casas: In search of the poor of Jesus Christ. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Hammersley, M. (1989). The Problem of the Concept: Herbert Blumer on the Relationship between Concepts and Data. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (18),133–59. https://doi.org/10.1177/089124189018002002
Healy, Nicholas M. (2000). Church, World and the Christian Life: Practical-Prophetic Ecclesiology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511605857
Gardner, Andrew & Gerardo Martí. Forthcoming. “From Ordaining Women to Combating White Supremacy: Oppositional Shifts in Social Attitudes between the Southern Baptist Convention and the Alliance of Baptists.” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation.
Guyer, J. (2013). “The Quickening of the Unknown”: Epistemologies of Surprise in Anthropology (The Munro Lecture 2013). HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory (3), 283-307. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau3.3.012
Kaufman, Tone Stangeland. (2015). Normativity as Pitfall or Ally? Reflexivity as an Interpretive Resource in Ecclesiological and Ethnographic Research. Ecclesial Practices 2(1): 91–107. https://doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00201006
Lichterman, Paul. (2017). Interpretive Reflexivity in Ethnography. Ethnography 18(1) 35-45.
Mannheim, Karl. (1936). Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.
Martí, Gerardo. (2005). A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church. Bloomsbury, IN: Indiana University Press.
Martí, Gerardo. (2008). Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Martí, Gerardo. (2009). Affinity, Identity, and Transcendence: The Experience of Religious Racial Integration in Diverse Congregations. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 48(1), 53-68. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01429.x
Martí, Gerardo. (2010). When does Religious Racial Integration 'Count'? A Caution. Against Seeking Ideal Ethnographic Cases. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 49(2), 224-230. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2010.01505.x
Martí, Gerardo. (2012). Worship across the Racial Divide: Religious Music and the Multiracial Congregation. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195392975.001.0001
Martí, Gerardo. (2016a). Found Theologies versus Imposed Theologies: Remarks on Theology and Ethnography from a Sociological Perspective. Ecclesial Practices. 3(2), 157-172. https://doi.org/10.1163/22144471-00302002
Martí, Gerardo. (2016b). “I Was a Muslim, but Now I Am a Christian”: Preaching, Legitimation, and Identity Management in a Southern Evangelical Church. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 55(2), 250-270. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12261
Martí, Gerardo. (2018). Maranatha (O Lord, Come): The Power/Surrender Dynamic of Pentecostal Worship. Liturgy 33(3), 20-28. https://doi.org/10.1080/0458063X.2018.1449515
Martí, Gerardo. (2023). “Ethnography as a Tool for Genuine Surprise: Found Theologies versus Imposed Theologies.” In Knut Tveitereid & Pete Ward (eds.) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Theology and Qualitative Research. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Blackwell.
Martí, Gerardo & Michael Emerson. (2013). “The Rise of the Diversity Expert: How American Evangelicals Simultaneously Accentuate and Ignore Race”. In Brian Steensland and Philip K. Goff, eds., The New Evangelical Social Engagement. New York: Oxford University Press.
Martí, Gerardo & Gladys Ganiel. (2014). The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199959884.001.0001
Mathews, Shailer. (1912). The Social Origin of Theology. American Journal of Sociology (18), 289-317. https://doi.org/10.1086/212094
McKearney, Patrick. (2021). The Ability to Judge: Critique and Surprise in Theology, Anthropology, and L’Arche. Ethnos 86(3), 460-476. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2019.1640261
Merton, Robert K. (1936). The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action. American Sociological Review (1), 894-904. https://doi.org/10.2307/2084615
Merton, Robert K. (1995). The Thomas Theorem and the Matthew Effect. Social Forces (74), 379-422. https://doi.org/10.2307/2580486
Milbank, A.J. (1989). Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell.
Moschella, Mary Clark. (2008). Ethnography as a Pastoral Practice: An Introduction. Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press.
Mulder, Mark T. & Gerardo Martí. (2020). The Glass Church: Robert H. Schuller, The Crystal Cathedral, and the Strain of Megachurch Ministry. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. https://doi.org/10.36019/9780813589084
O'Brien, John. (2009). “Sociology as an Epistemology of Contradiction.” Sociological Perspectives (52), 5-22. https://doi.org/10.1525/sop.2009.52.1.5
Ramos, Aida I., Gerardo Martí, and Mark T. Mulder. (2020). The Strategic Practice of ‘Fiesta’ in a Latino Protestant Church: Religious Racialization and the Performance of Ethnic Identity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 59(1), 161-179. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12646
Santos, Bonaventura de Susa. (2018). The End of the Cognitive Empire: The Coming of Age of Epistemologies of the South. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478002000
Scharen, Christian. (2005). “Judicious Narratives”, or Ethnography as Ecclesiology. Scottish Journal of Theology (58), 125-142. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0036930605000979
Scharen Christian & Vigen Ann Marie (eds). (2011). Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics. New York: Continuum.
Scharen, Christian. (2015). Fieldwork in Theology: Exploring the Social Context of God's Work in the World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Schutz, Alfred. (1967). The Phenomenology of the Social World. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Schutz, Alfred. (1970). On Phenomenology and Social Relations: Selected Writings, edited by Helmut R. Wagner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Schutz, Alfred. (1973). The Structures of the Life-World, with Thomas Luckmann, translated by R. M. Zaner & H. T. Engelhardt, Jr. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
Shweder, Richard A. (1997). The Surprise of Ethnography. Ethos (25), 152-163. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1997.25.2.152
Smith, Ted. (2004). Redeeming critique: Resignations to the cultural turn in Christian theology and ethics. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 24(2), 89–113. https://doi.org/10.5840/jsce20042427
Tanner, Kathryn. (1997). Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
Vaisey, Stephen. (2019). From Contradiction to Coherence: Theory Building in the Sociology of Culture. SocArXiv. August 30. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/9mwfc
Ward, Pete. (2012). Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography. Eerdmans: Grand Rapids.
Webster John. (2012). “‘In the society of god’: Some principles of ecclesiology.” In: Pete Ward (ed). Perspectives on Ecclesiology and Ethnography. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Wigg-Stevenson, Natalie. (2015). “From Proclamation to Conversation: Ethnographic Disruptions to Theological Normativity”. In Palgrave Communications: Radical Theologies (1), 15024 https://doi.org/10.1057/palcomms.2015.24
Wigg-Stevenson, Natalie. (2014). Ethnographic Theology: An Inquiry into the Production of Theological Knowledge. Palgrave, NY. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137387752
Whitmore Todd D. (2019). Imitating Christ in Magwi: An Anthropological Theology. London: T&T Clark. https://doi.org/10.5040/9780567684219
Williams, Rowan. (1992). Saving Time: Thoughts on Practice, Patience, and Vision. New Blackfriars 73(861), 319–326. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-2005.1992.tb07249.x
Young, Robert J.C. 2001. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.