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

    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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