Kaleidoscopes, Methodological Play, and the Intrinsic Politics of Belief Scholarship

Abstract

This paper will explore the intrinsic politics that shape post-contextualist belief studies. Belief scholars, like folklorists in general, typically take the politics of our work to be natural, neutral and self-evident, treating our scholarly perspectives as givens rather than as purposeful constructions. This paper will explore our engagement in belief studies with subaltern voices, subordinated knowledges and vernacular culture, suggesting that what marks the belief scholars' particular brand of politics is a type of methodological play that challenges and subverts cultural symmetries and asymmetries.