{"id":1296,"date":"2013-03-01T17:27:37","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T22:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/practicalmattersjournal.ecdsdev.org\/?p=1296"},"modified":"2015-10-13T12:59:30","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T16:59:30","slug":"ethnography-as-christian-theology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pmcleanup.ecdsdev.org\/2013\/03\/01\/ethnography-as-christian-theology\/","title":{"rendered":"Roundtable on “Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics”: Beyond “Use” of Social Science in Theology"},"content":{"rendered":"
Download PDF:\u00a0Scharen and Vigen, Roundtable on Ethnography<\/a><\/h5>\n
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Conveners: Christian A. Scharen, Luther Seminary and Aana Marie Vigen, Loyola University Chicago
\nEmily Reimer-Barry, University of San Diego,\u00a0link<\/u>
\nMary McClintock Fulkerson, Duke Divinity School,\u00a0link<\/u>
\nTed A. Smith, Candler School of Theology,\u00a0link<\/u>
\nChristian A. Scharen, Luther Seminary and Aana Marie Vigen, Loyola University Chicago,\u00a0link<\/u>
\nJo\u00e3o Biehl, Princeton University,\u00a0link<\/u><\/p>\n

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Over the past decade, the \u201cuse\u201d of ethnography in theology and ethics has grown significantly. When Scharen and two colleagues planned a panel on \u201cEthnography and Normative Ethics\u201d at the Society of Christian Ethics meeting in 2003, it was still an unusual enterprise. While a few pioneers had begun such work in the decade before, ethnography had by no means become a standard partner for theology and ethics. \u00a0Five years later, at the annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics (SCE) in 2007, Todd Whitmore presented a paper titled \u201cCrossing the Road: The Case for Ethnographic Fieldwork in Christian Ethics,\u201d in which he declared that \u201cChristian ethics is virtually devoid of ethnographic fieldwork\u201d and critiqued Christian ethicists for practicing \u201cveranda ethics.\u201d \u201cThey write,\u201d Whitmore suggested, \u201cfrom a vast social remove from the issues they address, like poverty and war, as observers.\u201d1<\/u>\u00a0The paper struck a chord, and the subsequent conversations sparked the desire within us to write a book with a two-fold agenda: to describe the intersection of ethnographic methods and Christian theology and ethics and to display a diversity of practitioners working at this intersection. Our book,\u00a0Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics<\/em>\u00a0(EACTE<\/em>), subsequently appeared in 2011 and was the subject of a panel discussion at the SCE annual meeting in January 2012.<\/p>\n

The collection of essays featured in this issue of\u00a0Practical Matters<\/em>, with the exception of the piece by Jo\u00e3o Biehl, were first crafted for that SCE panel organized to discuss\u00a0EACTE<\/em>. The publication of this series of essays represents a timely and significant moment in the ongoing dialogue about the use of ethnographic methods in Christian theology and ethics. We are grateful to the editors of\u00a0Practical Matters<\/em>\u00a0for granting such generous space for conversation with others about the creative possibilities and critical questions arising since the publication of our book. \u00a0The trajectory of conversation and collaboration we just described\u2014and the one following in this issue of\u00a0Practical Matters<\/em>\u2014is one marker of the growing interest in and practice of \u201ctheological ethnography.\u201d Indeed, the \u201cuse\u201d of social science in theology and ethics has a long pedigree within Christian theology and ethics. One can trace any number of family trees working this path\u2014Scharen\u2019s teachers Robert Bellah and James Gustafson, both deeply influenced by H. Richard Niebuhr, for example, or Vigen, shaped by her mentors Beverly Wildung Harrison and Larry L. Rasmussen, each in their own ways influenced by Reinhold Niebuhr. In short, the \u201ccultural turn\u201d in theology in the past few decades has raised the profile of the social sciences and social theory as preferred disciplinary partners to the level formerly occupied solely by philosophy.2<\/u>\u00a0Some, ourselves included, seek to move beyond the more traditional position of “using” social science in theological ethics to a more novel one: ethnography as theology and ethics, or, as we have been calling it: theological ethnography. That is, we argue that the research practice of attending to situations, and of hearing persons in those situations as embodying substantive theological\/ethical claims, is constitutive of theological\/ethical work.<\/p>\n

We have been encouraged by the constructive and appreciative feedback\u00a0EACTE<\/em>\u00a0has garnered thus far. In drafting the book, we both felt daunted at various points by the complexity of being responsible and substantive with regards to the material across distinct disciplines. Yet we also did not want to delve too deeply, leading the novice ethnographer into the thicket of the wide and diverse varieties of research strategies\u2014the nuts and bolts of ethnographic approaches. So, when it was all said and done, we sent off the manuscript as a humble offering, hoping it would be of help to others. As we did then, we remind ourselves now that the book was always meant to be the beginning of a conversation, never its culmination or conclusion. The collection of essays in this issue\u2014especially with the addition of the voice of a prominent anthropologist, Jo\u00e3o Biehl\u2014moves the conversation several levels deeper. For the rich thought and dialogue articulated in these pieces and for the conversations still to come, we are truly grateful.<\/p>\n

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Notes<\/h4>\n
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  1. Todd David Whitmore, \u201cCrossing the Road: The Role of Ethnographic Fieldwork in Christian Ethics,\u201d\u00a0Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics\u00a0<\/em>27, no. 2 (Fall-Winter 2007): 273.<\/li>\n
  2. Kathryn Tanner,\u00a0Theories of Culture<\/em>(Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Download PDF:\u00a0Scharen and Vigen, Roundtable on Ethnography Conveners: Christian A. Scharen, Luther Seminary and Aana Marie Vigen, Loyola University Chicago Emily Reimer-Barry, University of San Diego,\u00a0link Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Duke Divinity School,\u00a0link Ted A. Smith, Candler School of Theology,\u00a0link Christian<\/p>\n

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