About the Book
Method as Identity: Manufacturing Distance in the Academic Study of Religion emphasizes the inexorable influence that social identities exert in shaping methodological choices within the academic study of religion, as witnessed in sui generis appeals to particularity and reliance on (or rejection of) identity-based standpoints. Can data speak back, and if so, would scholars have ears to listen? With a refreshing hip hop sensibility, Miller and Driscoll argue that what cultural theorist Jean-François Bayart refers to as a “battle for identity” forces a necessary confrontation with the (impact of) social identities (and, their histories) haunting our fields of study. These complex categorical specters make it nearly impossible to untether the categories of identity that we come to study from the identity of categories shaping our methodological lenses. Treating method as an identity-revealing technique of distance-making between the “proper” scholar and the less-than-scholarly advocate for religion, Miller and Driscoll examine a variety of discursive milieus of vagueness (consider for instance “essentialism,” “origins,” “authenticity”) at work in the contemporary discussion of “critical” methods that lack the necessary specificity for doing the heavy-lifting of analytically handling the asymmetrical dimensions of power part and parcel to social identification. Through interdisciplinary discussions that draw on thinkers including Charles H Long, Bruce Lincoln, Russell T. McCutcheon, Theodor Adorno, Jacques Derrida, C. Wright Mills, Laurel C. Schneider, William D. Hart, Tomoko Masuzawa, Anthony B. Pinn, bell hooks, Roderick Ferguson, John L. Jackson, Jasbir Puar, and Jean-François Bayart, among others, Method as Identity intentionally blurs the lines classifying “proper” scholarly approach and proper “objects” of study. With an intentional effort to challenge the de facto disciplinary segregation marking the field and study of religion today, Method as Identity will be of interest to scholars involved in discussions about theory and method for the study of religion, and especially researchers working at the intersections of identity, difference, and classification—and the politics thereof.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Manufacturing Distance in the Study of Religion
1.Method as Identity: The Battle for Identity in the North American Academic Study of Religion
2.Ghost Stories: How Method Reveals Identity in the Study of Religions
3.Long Division: How Identity Reveals Method in the History of Religions
4.What Is “Black” about “Black” Religious Studies?: Distinction and Diaspora in the Maintenance of a Field
5.What Identity Is Your Method?: Tracing Co-Constitution in the Twilight of (White) Normativity
6.Categorical Miscegenation: Strange Bitter Fruit and Uncertain Branches in the Field
7.N-Words and M-Words: Switching Codes, Shifting Realities, and Trading Metaphors of Authority
Conclusion: Ghostbusters & Paranoiacs
About the Author :
Monica R. Miller is associate professor of religion studies and Africana studies and director of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Lehigh University.
Christopher M. Driscoll is assistant professor of religion studies, American studies, and Africana studies at Lehigh University.
Review :
In terms of pedagogy, this volume is particularly helpful to instructors of method and theory: the text has laid out solid arguments regarding the complementarity of objectivity and subjectivity within the study of religion which present a more inclusive way of evaluating seemingly contending approaches.
Method as Identity: Manufacturing Distance in the Academic Study of Religion, by Christopher M. Driscoll and Monica R. Miller, challenges the idea that religion can be studied through methods that are independent of the identities of the scholars working in the field. While it impressively sums up historical developments in the field of religious studies, it is a book that is immensely relevant in the current day and naturally encourages self-reflection and awareness as a response from the reader.
The study of religion needs this book. With an eye toward institutional decolonization and conversational revitalization, Driscoll and Miller ask us to reflect on the lies we tell when we talk about proper discipline and right method. Departments of religious studies should read this book and ask themselves what they can do to forge better interpretive futures from the bad normative assumptions of our academic past.
Some scholars of religion object when religious identities are brought into the academy. They hold that academic work requires a method that maintains a distance from the people one studies. In this incisive book, Christopher Driscoll and Monica Miller push back against this narrative. Rejecting the claim that there is a method free of identity politics, and rejecting the ideology whereby a European, 'white' world became modern by painting others as anti-modern, tribal, and religious, Driscoll and Miller offer a very welcome interrogation of those approaches that call themselves the critical study of religion.
Miller and Driscoll offer a brilliant and dialogical engagement with leading scholars argue that theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of religion in which they argue that by the very idea of location implies that the scholar of religion cannot ignore identity as an as an important theoretical tool because it embraces and has broad implications for culture, race, gender, class, and ethnicity. In arguing that identity, especially race constitutes a critical analytical tool they rightly call on scholars of religion to develop a critical posture towards race as one of the many social realities in developing a critical understanding of religion because whether intended or not, behind many disinterested approaches lurk the overriding notion of identity which if not checked through critical inquiry, colors the study of religion and deprives methods and theory of providing critical tools to an understanding of the very concrete personal and social dynamics of identity that animate the study (and one might add) the practice of religion.
The authors argue that theory-and-method in the study of religion is no more sui generis than its object. Method is shot through with values and interests rooted in the identities of white male scholars from colonizing societies. Method indexes identity. Method is at the cutting edge of distinguishing analyst from data, civilized from primitive, and European “Man” from the rest. Method as Identity is an incisive interrogation of the study of religion that demonstrates how an uninterrogated whiteness haunts every move we make.
Miller and Driscoll have produced a creative and provocative exploration of identity formation as it plays out in the lives of scholars. Their skillful application critical race theory to a discussion of how our methodological stances signal far more than disinterested analytical frameworks for the advancement of an abstract notion of un-situated knowledge represents an important challenge to any thoughtful scholar. This book will leave many readers uncomfortable, which signals it has something of value to offer.
Christopher Driscoll and Monica Miller challenge the authorizing discourses in the field of Religious Studies that deem “proper” method as being free from socially anchored interests or demands. Method as Identity disrupts disciplinary assumptions about identity-based research and will inspire renewed debate about the formation of our methodological presuppositions. With exuberant style, penetrating criticisms, and generative arguments Driscoll and Miller show the key role of identity in producing scholarship. This strikingly original and provocative reassessment of the field is a pioneering and convincing effort. Driscoll and Miller continue to rise up as indispensable voices in the study of religion. Method as Identity is essential for anyone interested in the past, present, or future of Religious Studies.
For years I’ve been asking myself why scholars using critical, cog sci, or Foucauldian approaches to the study of religion are predominantly white. In this provocative manifesto, Miller and Driscoll begin to offer an answer. Throughout the nineteenth century, the study of religion consisted of white European men making objects of “primitive savages,” thereby establishing distance between the authoritative “science” of religion and foolish, misguided brown peoples all over the globe. Miller and Driscoll suggest that the rhetorical distancing of non-confessional from confessional approaches—the latter often including people of color in the discipline—perhaps serves an analogous rhetorical purpose: to buttress the privilege of white, Euro-American “scientific” approaches over that of others. Turning a “critical” eye back on “critical” approaches themselves, Method as Identity asks crucial questions we, as scholars, are obliged to offer an answer.
