Method as Identity: Manufacturing Distance in the Academic Study of
Religion emphasizes the inexorable influence that social identities
exert in shaping methodological choices within the academic study
of religion, as witnessed in sui generis appeals to particularity
and reliance on (or rejection of) identity-based standpoints. Can
data speak back, and if so, would scholars have ears to listen?
With a refreshing hip hop sensibility, Miller and Driscoll argue
that what cultural theorist Jean-Francois Bayart refers to as a
"battle for identity" forces a necessary confrontation with the
(impact of) social identities (and, their histories) haunting our
fields of study. These complex categorical specters make it nearly
impossible to untether the categories of identity that we come to
study from the identity of categories shaping our methodological
lenses. Treating method as an identity-revealing technique of
distance-making between the "proper" scholar and the
less-than-scholarly advocate for religion, Miller and Driscoll
examine a variety of discursive milieus of vagueness (consider for
instance "essentialism," "origins," "authenticity") at work in the
contemporary discussion of "critical" methods that lack the
necessary specificity for doing the heavy-lifting of analytically
handling the asymmetrical dimensions of power part and parcel to
social identification. Through interdisciplinary discussions that
draw on thinkers including Charles H Long, Bruce Lincoln, Russell
T. McCutcheon, Theodor Adorno, Jacques Derrida, C. Wright Mills,
Laurel C. Schneider, William D. Hart, Tomoko Masuzawa, Anthony B.
Pinn, bell hooks, Roderick Ferguson, John L. Jackson, Jasbir Puar,
and Jean-Francois Bayart, among others, Method as Identity
intentionally blurs the lines classifying "proper" scholarly
approach and proper "objects" of study. With an intentional effort
to challenge the de facto disciplinary segregation marking the
field and study of religion today, Method as Identity will be of
interest to scholars involved in discussions about theory and
method for the study of religion, and especially researchers
working at the intersections of identity, difference, and
classification-and the politics thereof.
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