Title

Researching New Religious Movements from the Inside Out and the Outside In Methodological Reflections from Collaborative and Participatory Perspectives

Authors

Authors

A. Gleig

Comments

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Abbreviated Journal Title

Nova Relig.

Keywords

insider-outsider; method and theory in religious studies; participatory; turn; new religious movements; yoga; Sri Aurobindo; Religion

Abstract

Drawing on my own fieldwork experiences with the transnational Integral Yoga community, this essay offers some reflections on two possible approaches to bridging insider-outsider perspectives in the study of new religious movements. First, I consider Gerald Larson's suggestion of a "relationship of mutual reciprocity" between researcher and religious community. Second, I discuss the value of a participatory approach that attempts to integrate engaged participation with critical distance in the study of religion. I use my collaborative experience co-authoring an academic article on Sri Aurobindo and the contemporary yoga scene with an Integral Yoga practitioner to argue that while Larson's reciprocal enterprise risks either sacrificing critical concerns to apologetic agendas, or polarizing the insider as apologetic and the outsider as reductive, a participatory approach proposes a way to put insider-outsider perspectives into a more creative relation.

Journal Title

Nova Religio-Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions

Volume

16

Issue/Number

1

Publication Date

1-1-2012

Document Type

Article

Language

English

First Page

88

Last Page

103

WOS Identifier

WOS:000307913600006

ISSN

1092-6690

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