Missionary Impositions

This collection of essays, written by anthropologists who study religion, examines the special challenges of conducting research within a population that proselytizes. Because the ethnographic technique of "participant-observation" involves living among the people anthropologists study and participating in the activities of the group, when researching religion, this may involve actively attending services, meditating, praying, marching in procession, and making pilgrimages. This participation may complicate research by communicating to the community that the researcher has a personal interest in the religion and they may urge the researcher to convert. Additionally, the participation may have an effect on the researcher's religious beliefs despite anthropologists' general desire to remain objective. The anthropologists' own attitudes about religion, belief and faith, as well as their response to pressures to convert, may interfere with their objectivity. Although the role of identity in research, particularly gender and ethnic identity, has been extensively examined, religious identity is more fluid and changeable and has been relatively under-explored.
By examining how researchers respond, academically and personally, to participation in religious activities and to the ministrations of missionaries, this volume addresses this lack. Including essays by anthropologists studying the proselytizing religions of Buddhism, Islam, and various forms of Christianity, as well as other religions, this volume provides a range of responses to the question of how the gap between belief and disbelief in research should be approached in ethnographic research.