widely quoted. No less popular, due in part to Geertz’s mellifluous style and
in part to the widespread rejection of materialist explanations in the social
sciences, are formulations such as ‘thick description’ and ‘theater state’, which
are still used in a slogan-like manner by students of religion who have some
familiarity with the social sciences. As a case of unmitigated vulgar culturalism,
the notion of a ‘theater state’, Balinese or otherwise, ought to be regarded with
the utmost skepticism; and if Geertz’s Negara(1980) is to be read, that should
be done alongside Lansing’s and Leo Howe’s work on Bali. No less influential
on scholars of religion has been the British anthropologist Victor Turner, whose
work on symbolism and ritual, was based first on his research among the
Ndembu of Zambia and later expanded eventually to include Mexico and
Ireland. In works such as The Forest of Symbols(1967), The Ritual Process
(1969), Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors(1974), Revelation and Divination in
Ndembu Ritual(1975), Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture(1978),
Turner emphasized the processual character of social action, focusing on
liminal, ‘between and betwixt’ states such as pilgrimages. One of his most
celebrated concepts was that of communitas, a somewhat romanticized way
of referring to situations in which ordinary social constraints no longer seem
to apply.
As a counterpart to the ‘hermeneutical’ approach, French structuralism,
represented above all by Claude Lévi-Strauss, insisted on rigorous formal
analysis, influenced by the procedures employed by the linguist and folklorist
Roman Jakobson (although it must be added that Lévi-Strauss made a point
of distinguishing between his structuralism and the formalism associated with
Vladimir Propp). The influence exercised by Lévi-Strauss and by structuralism
in general can be seen in essays such as the ones contained in Structural Analysis
of Oral Tradition, edited by Pierre Maranda and Elli Köngäs Maranda (1971);
in Wendy Doniger’s Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Âiva(1973);
and in Hans Penner’s work. But in this as in many other cases in which a new
approach is regarded as a ‘new paradigm’, a degree of skepticism is justified
concerning the extent to which this paradigm is really understood. For example,
in a chapter devoted to ‘Structuralism, Anthropology and Lévi-Strauss’ (Impasse
and Resolution, 1989, p. 152), Penner quotes, without correcting it, a faulty
translation of Émile Benveniste’s presentation of Ferdinand de Saussure’s
understanding of the relationship between ‘signifier’ (signifiant) and ‘signified’
(signifié), according to which Saussure is made to say that by signifianthe means
‘concept’.
Of the three topics traditionally studied by anthropologists and historians
of religion, symbol, myth and ritual, the latter has received the most attention
during the last decades. In addition to many ethnographies, we have theoretical
studies such as Stanley Tambiah’s ‘A Performative Approach to Ritual’ (1979);
Ronald Grimes’ Beginnings in Ritual Studies(1982/1995); works by Jonathan
Smith and Catherine Bell, as well as the two volumes co-authored by Thomas250
GUSTAVO BENAVIDES