Donald A. Nielsen

Rationalization, Transformations of Consciousness and Intercivilizational Encounters Reflections on Benjamin Nelson's Sociology of Civilizations

This article provides a critical reconstruction of Benjamin Nelsons work on the sociology of civilizations. His main concepts for civilizational analysis are located within the sociological tradition, in particular, the work of Durkheim, Mauss and their school and Max Weber. The article focuses especially on the historical, comparative and analytic value of Nelsons distinction among three types of structures of consciousness (sacro-magical, faith and rationalized structures), particularly the historical role of rationalized structures. It suggests how these concepts might be given both a fuller analytical differentiation and more detailed historical specification. The article emphasizes how inter-civilizational encounters provide the settings for cultural innovations which serve as starting points for the later historical transformations of civilizations. Outcomes of civilizational encounters between Greece, Rome and Judaism in the Hellenistic era are given special attention. The articles main themes are illustrated throughout by reference to a variety of substantive issues and historical comparative civilizational contexts. These include the role of world religions, sciences, philosophies and other cultural forms in the ancient world, Western Europe, Russia and elsewhere.

A Year in White: Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United StatesA Year in White: Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santería in the United States, by CarrC. Lynn. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2016. 227 pp.

Americans are often seen as spiritual seekers and religious switchers, moving fluidly across religious group boundaries and often combining diverse beliefs and practices in surprising ways. C. Lynn Carr’s A Year in White: Cultural Newcomers to Lukumi and Santerı́a in the United States offers fresh confirmation of this view by examining the experiences of converts to the Lukumi religious tradition (also known as Santerı́a). Originally an Afro-Cuban religion with strong roots in Latino communities, Lukumi has become increasingly attractive to ethnically nontraditional newcomers, who are the focus of Carr’s study—in particular, those who have undergone the year-long ritual of initiation as priests of Lukumi, the ‘‘year in white’’ that provides the title of her book. Indeed, Carr herself is, in the Lukumi lexicon, an iyawo, one who has experienced what, borrowing a term from Arnold van Gennep, she calls the lengthy period of ‘‘liminality’’ constituted by the many and often difficult rules that serve to separate the initiates from their routine identities. The author combines several methods of investigation. She electronically administered a survey of Lukumi priests who had undergone the year in white and followed with 52 in-depth interviews. In addition, and in some ways most engaging, she supplemented the findings from her research subjects with reflections from an autoethnography based on notebooks she kept recording her experiences and responses. The sum is a richly descriptive study and provides valuable findings not only for future researchers interested in Lukumi beliefs and practices, but also those wishing to undertake broader analyses comparing Lukumi converts with those attracted to other religious groups. Carr’s findings are conveyed in a series of clearly written and often emotionally evocative chapters, each focused on an aspect of the year in white. There is an initial discussion, situating her sample of iyawos within the ethnic and religious traditions of Lukumi and examining their stated reasons for pursuing the initiation. This is followed by a fascinating chapter detailing the many complex and compulsory rules the initiate must observe during the year-long rite and the various reactions of different iyawos to these rules, many of which are concerned with purification and the maintenance of purity. She then describes the social relationships with other key actors in the initiation— especially the initiate’s godfamily and members of her house community (or casa de ocha)—and follows this with a fascinating treatment of the relationship of the iyawo with the various Orisha (aspects of deity in Lukumi). A concluding chapter summarizes and coordinates many aspects of the research and adds Carr’s reflections on the problem of negotiating the several worlds—religious, professional, familial, and so forth—that compete for the individual’s attention and allegiance during the demanding year in white and beyond. The book concludes with appendices on the quantitative and qualitative research methods employed, the survey administered, and a list of research participants. Finally, readers will find the glossary of Lukumi terms indispensable, since they are used repeatedly in Carr’s text in her effort to evoke the texture of experience of the year in white in the group’s own language. Carr’s tables group the survey results into empirical categories: for example, the respondents’ differing reasons for engaging in the year in white. These provide convenient summaries of the evidence, yet also raise questions concerning the relationship between her empirical findings and her sociological analysis. Indeed, the book contains very little actual sociological conceptualization. The aforementioned notion of ‘‘liminality’’ provides a central framework for locating the initiation experience, which is also designated by Garfinkel’s term as a year-long ‘‘breaching experiment’’ where 546 Reviews

27.95 paper. ISBN: 9780813571195.

The effort to write a history of the sociology of religion requires a delineation of the field. In turn, this requires a discrimination among the key ideas determining that field, including the notions of “religion,” “sociology,” the “sacred,” and a host of others. This is a prerequisite for sorting the various contributors and contributions to this field as well as determining the value of any such history to the future advance of the study of human consciousness and conduct, including “religion.” Ciprianis book is reviewed, and its strengths and weaknesses assayed, in light of these concerns. Several lacunae in the book are identified, such as the absence of any treatment of non-Western writers and its failure to substantially engage the work of women, including Jane Ellen Harrisons pioneering sociology of religion.