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Abstract
Engaging David Chidester’s argument that takes up ideas from Marx and Benjamin, the article argues that the academic study of religion can make a contribution to understand the economy by conceptualising it as functioning like a religion. This is achieved by using theorised concepts of myth (sacred stories), rituals and institutions that serve not only to unite adherents, but also to establish, maintain or challenge power relations. The thesis is tentatively illustrated with reference to the Chinese economy that needs to be compared with other economic systems that function like a religion.
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“Economic Update: The Phenomenon of China.” Democracy at Work, 29 April 2024. YouTube video, 30:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6LBNDKTk8Q.
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Adorno, Theodor W. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture. Edited by J.M. Bernstein. London; New York, NY: Routledge, 2001.
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Bataille, Georges. “The Notion of Expenditure.” Pages 116–129 in Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927–1939. Edited and introduced by Allan Stoekl. Translated by Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie, Jr. Theory and History of Literature 14. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1985.
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Benjamin, Walter. “Capitalism as Religion.” Pages 288–291 in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Vol. 1: 1913–1926. Edited by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, [1921] 1996.
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Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin. Translated by Edmund Jephcott, Rodney Livingstone, Howard Eiland, et al. Cambridge, MA; London: Harvard University Press, [1939] 2008.
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Bourdieu, Pierre. In Other Words: Essays toward a Reflexive Sociology. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
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Bourdieu, Pierre. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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Chidester, David. “Material Culture.” In Vocabulary for the Study of Religion Online. Edited by Robert A. Segal and Kocku von Stuckrad. Leiden: Brill, 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004249707_vsr_COM_00000036.
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Chidester, David. “Postgraduates Producing Knowledge.” Journal for the Study of Religion 26, no. 1 (2013): 5–7. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1011-76012013000200001&lng=en&tlng=en.
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Chidester, David. “The Poetics and Politics of Sacred Space: Towards a Critical Phenomenology of Religion.” Pages 211–231 in From the Sacred to the Divine: A New Phenomenological Approach. Edited by Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Analecta Husserliana: The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research 43. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994.
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Chidester, David. Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture. Berkeley, CA; London: University of California Press, 2005.
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Chidester, David. Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion. Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 2014.
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Chidester, David. Religion: Material Dynamics. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018.
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Chidester, David. Shots in the Streets: Violence and Religion in South Africa. Cape Town: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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Chidester, David. Word and Light: Seeing, Hearing, and Religious Discourse. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1992.
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Chidester, David. Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012.
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Chidester, David. Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1996.
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Durkheim, Emile. Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse: Le système totémique en Australie. 5th ed. Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de France, [1912] 1968.
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Jinping Xi. “Full text: Xi Jinping’s Speech at the 15th BRICS Summit.” China Global Television Network (CGTN), 23 August 2023. https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-08-23/Full-text-Xi-Jinping-s-speech-at-the-15th-BRICS-Summit-1mvxFMvuFLW/index.html.
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Marx, Karl. Capital, vol. 1. Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. Marx & Engels Collected Works 35. London: Lawrence and Wishart, [1867] 1974.
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Mauss, Marcel. The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies. Translated by Ian Cunnison. Introduced by E.E. Evans-Pritchard. London: W.W. Norton and Company, [1924] 1966.
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Ministry of Justice of the People’s Republic of China. “Communique of the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China,” 19 July 2024. http://en.moj.gov.cn/2024-07/19/c_1006335.htm.
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Smith, Jonathan Z. Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion. Chicago, IL; London: University of Chicago Press, 2004.
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Strijdom, Johan, and Lee Scharnick-Udemans. “Materializing Religion: Essays in Honor of David Chidester.” Journal for the Study of Religion 31, no. 2 (2018), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2018/v31n2a0.
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Strijdom, Johan. “A Postcolonial and Material Theory of Knowledge for the Study of Religion: A Comparison of Durkheim and Chidester’s Epistemologies.” Journal for the Study of Religion 37, no. 1 (2024), 14 pages. https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2024/v37n1a6.
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Strijdom, Johan. “Comparison after Materiality.” Pages 99–110 in The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion. Edited by Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Jennifer Scheper Hughes and S. Brent Rodríguez-Plate. Routledge Handbooks in Religion 18. Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023.
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Strijdom, Johan. “The Material Turn in Religious Studies and the Possibility of Critique: Assessing Chidester’s Analysis of ‘the Fetish’.” HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 70(1), Art. #2116, 7 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/hts.v70i1.2116.
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Strijdom, Johan. “Totem: The Ethics of a Material Term in the Study of Religion.” Religion and Theology 31, no. 1–2 (2024): 114–127. https://doi.org/10.1163/15743012-bja10073.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 727 | 146 | 8 |
| Full Text Views | 38 | 26 | 21 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 138 | 40 | 29 |
Search for other papers by Johan Strijdom in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Engaging David Chidester’s argument that takes up ideas from Marx and Benjamin, the article argues that the academic study of religion can make a contribution to understand the economy by conceptualising it as functioning like a religion. This is achieved by using theorised concepts of myth (sacred stories), rituals and institutions that serve not only to unite adherents, but also to establish, maintain or challenge power relations. The thesis is tentatively illustrated with reference to the Chinese economy that needs to be compared with other economic systems that function like a religion.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 727 | 146 | 8 |
| Full Text Views | 38 | 26 | 21 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 138 | 40 | 29 |
