The Relational Dynamics of Disenchantment and Sacralization: Changing the Terms of the Religion Versus Secularity Debate

This volume revisits the concepts of enchantment and sacralization in light of perspectives which challenge the modern notion that man (alone) is the measure of all things. As Bruno Latour has argued, the battle against superstition entailed shifting power away from God/the gods to humans, thereby disqualifying the agency of all the other objects in the world. Might enchantment and sacralization be understood in other ways than through this battle between almighty gods and almighty humans? Might enchantment be understood to involve processes where power and control are not distributed so clearly and definitely? Like social constructionists, Latour emphasizes that things are constructed; yet, like many other new materialists, such as Jane Bennett, Manuel De Landa and Karen Barad, he emphasizes that this construction is not the result of projecting meaning onto a passive and meaningless world, but a matter of compositional achievements, whereby assemblages of actants co-compose each other and frame, enable and delimit one another’s agency. This move recognizes the active and entangled participation of players beyond the humans versus God(s) framework that informed the modernist project. Understanding enchantment and sacralisation as compositionally and relationally constructed does not mean the same as understanding them as constructed by humans alone. What it means is one of the main questions posed in this book. In other words, if enchantment and sacralization are not understood (solely) in terms of projecting anthropocentric meaning onto mute objects, what are some promising alternative approaches – old and new – and what are their implications for how we understand modernity and for method and theory in the study of religion?

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Towards More Symmetrical Compositions Peik Ingman, Terhi Utriainen, Tuija Hovi and Måns Broo PART I: Revisiting Enchantment and Animism Objects as Subjects: Agency and Performativity in Rituals Anne-Christine Hornborg, Lund University Enchantment, Matter, and the Unpredictability of Devotion Amy Whitehead, University of Wales and Oxford Brookes University Empowerment and the Articulation of Agency among Finnish Yoga Practitioners Måns Broo and Christiane Königstedt, University of Münster Mastery and Modernity: Control Issues in the Disenchantment Tale Linda Annunen, Åbo Akademi University, and Peik Ingman PART II: Political Concerns Recomposing Religion: Radical Agnosticism and Transformative Speech Michael Barnes Norton, University of Arkansas Re-enchanting Body and Religion in a Secular Society: Touch of an Angel Terhi Utriainen Marian Apparitions: The Construction of Authenticity and Governance of Sacralization in the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Portugal Nora Machado, Lisbon University Institute and University of Gothen-burg Protection through the Invocation of Shared Thirds: Sacralization With-out Iconoclasm Peik Ingman PART III: Academic Concerns Enchanted Sight/Site: An Esoteric Aesthetics of Image and Experience Jay Johnston, University of Sydney From Religion to Ordering Uncertainty: A Lesson from Dancers Milan Fujda, Masaryk University, Czech Republic Co-composing a Village History in the Archipelago of Southwestern Finland Jaana Kouri, University of Turku After Dis/enchantment: The Profanity of the Human Sciences Stuart McWilliams, Åbo Akademi University Epilogue: When Things Talk Back Kocku von Stuckrad, University of Groningen

About the Author :
Peik Ingman is a PhD candidate in Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi University, Finland. Terhi Utriainen is Docent and Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religions at the University of Helsinki. Tuija Hovi is University Lecturer in Comparative Religion at the University of Turku. Måns Broo is University Researcher in the Department of Comparative Religion at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.