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The repugnant cultural other speaks back

Christian identity as ethnographic `standpoint'

Wheaton College, USA, Brian.M.Howell{at}wheaton.edu

Looking at Christian identity in terms of standpoint theory, this article takes up the argument introduced by Susan Friend Harding more than 10 years ago that Christianity and Christians are stigmatized within anthropology as a `repugnant cultural other'. Drawing from my own fieldwork in the Philippines and other recent work on Christianity, I argue that Christianity is a subject position analogous to other committed subject positions outside androcentric, enlightenment modernity (e.g. feminism). As such, the Christian voice should be welcomed and encouraged in the academy as a valuable ethnographic perspective.

Key Words: Christianity • epistemology • ethnography • native ethnography • positionality • standpoint theory • subjectivity

Anthropological Theory, Vol. 7, No. 4, 371-391 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1463499607083426


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