Blind Spots in Cultural Psychology of Religion: Neutrality, Normativity, and Ontology

Al Dueck

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Chapter 18 Blind Spots in Cultural Psychology of Religion: Neutrality, Normativity, and Ontology

In: Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

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Al Dueck

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 341–372

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004505315_020

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Abstract

Blind spots have resulted in dimensions of human experience that were simply not “seen,” or when seen, were not recognized as relevant for a fuller understanding of what it means to be human. Sexuality, religion, race, subjectivity, and gender were at one point unseen and then ‘discovered’ by psychologists. This essay examines three forms of cultural and psychological blindness related to the field of psychology of religion. (a) The normative impact of culture on the psyche. A plethora of psychological processes (cognition, memory, perception, emotion, identity, and so on) reflect the impact of the culture in which we live our lives. After considerable research demonstrating the cultural context of psyche, it became apparent that the normative culture shaping the field of psychology was, in fact, the social force of Western, modernist values. b) For much of the past century psychology studied the religion of the abstracted, autonomous, unbounded individual on the assumption that to describe a single person was in reality to observe generic human identity and religiosity. In the past 30 years, however, we have discovered that at macro and micro levels how embedded spirituality is in cultures that co constitute our subjectivity. c) At a deeper level there is the blind spot identified by recent anthropological research. Ontological assumptions have blinded the researcher to the integrity of spirituality in exotic cultures. The result has been the marginalization of spiritualities deemed irrational. It is argued that this lack understanding of spirituality in local culture is, in part, because religious traditions in different local cultures are ontologically different.

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Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

Lesser Heard Voices in Studies of Religion

Series: Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume: 32

Cover Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004505315

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 12 Apr 2022

Subjects
- Religious Studies
- Social Sciences
  - Religion & Society

Front Matter

Open Section

Edited by

Ralph W. Hood and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Special section 1 Religion or Belief in Higher Education

Edited

by Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor

Special section 2 Cultural Blindness in Psychology

Edited by

Louise Sundararajan

Special section 3 Religious Authority in Practice in Contemporary Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity

Edited by

Maren Freudenberg, Martin Radermacher and Sebastian Schüler

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Chapter 18 Blind Spots in Cultural Psychology of Religion: Neutrality, Normativity, and Ontology

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Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Volume 32

Lesser Heard Voices in Studies of Religion

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