Religion and Culture: An Anthropological Focus
Scupin, Raymond. 2007. Religion and Culture: An Anthropological Focus. 2nd ed. Prentice Hall.
Rating:
4
Summary:
Lot of info; not all accurate
The book is a collection of essays covering the anthropology of religion, ranging from theories to descriptions of the major world religions to their histories.
Review:
The book is very long and covers a lot of material. Alone it could serve as the text for a course on the anthropology of religion. As I had two books for the course I took, I didn’t read the entire book (it’s over 400 very dense pages). But the material I did read, mostly the chapters by Scupin himself, were not very impressive.
Two things bothered me. First, Scupin doesn’t ever mention rationalization or secularization in his discussion of religious modernization. It’s as though Scupin doesn’t want to consider late 19th centuries ideas about the eventual decline and disappearance of religion. I got the impression that Scupin was writing either to express his beliefs or to appeal to a religious audience. Even if he doesn’t agree with the ideas they merit discussion.
The second thing that bothered me was Scupin’s treatment of the oppressive elements of religion. Understandably, scholars are supposed to be objective and, ideally, they will treat religions fairly. Scupin, however, presents many of these things in a positive light. For instance, on p. 414 he discusses the resurgence of the wearing of the hijab among Muslim women. Scupin argues that this is a demonstration of Muslim women’s dissatisfaction with Western colonialism. There is certainly a degree of this, but there are other elements to it and, it isn’t universally an option for women. To argue that it is just a political statement is to misconstrue what can be an oppressive element of certain cultures.
Overall, though the book is informative and contains a great deal of information, the treatment isn’t entirely objective and can, at times, misconstrue elements of religions. I should also note the the index isn’t very comprehensive. If you choose to use the book for a course in the anthropology of religion, I would suggest making it the sole course text. However, I would also suggest that you supplement the text with information on the stuff that is missing (e.g. secularization and rationalization), as the book’s treatment isn’t complete.