Kim Knibbe

Methodological Ludism and the Academic Study of Religion

Abstract The usual options scholars have when dealing with religious truth claims—methodological atheism, theism and agnosticism—are criticized for being restricted to the contrast between science and religion. They represent researchers’ perspectives that are not helpful in studying believers’ truth claims. Furthermore, they are associated with positivist or neo-positivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism is presented as an alternative point of departure that connects well with current constructivist approaches to religion. Methodological ludism invites fieldworkers to use their human capacity for play by identifying temporarily, in a serious way, with believers’ claims of true knowledge. This posture is described and explored in a case study of a Dutch healer, Jomanda.

Secularist understandings of Pentecostal healing practices in Amsterdam: Developing an intersectional and post-secularist sociology of religion

The past decades have seen an intensification of debate around migrants, gender and sexuality. For the Netherlands, several authors have pointed out how this has given rise to a form of sexual nationalism whereby the idea of being a modern, progressive country is strongly linked to a program of liberal sexual values and offset against a presumably ‘backward’ migrant who is ‘still’ religious and traditional. In this article, the author analyses how these dynamics played out in the controversy around HIV-healings or homo healings supposedly taking place in Pentecostal churches in Amsterdam. Media attention highlighted the theme of homosexuality while forgetting the interests of women. This article shows that the sexual nationalism scheme was also operative here, and proposes further developing existing approaches as intersectional ‘post-secularist’ sociological perspectives aimed at unearthing the ways narratives of modernity, secularization and sexual nationalism structure attitudes towards migrant and religious actors both in social scientific research agendas and among societal actors.

From Angel in the Home to Sacred Prostitute: Unconditional Love and Gendered Hierarchies in Contemporary Spirituality

Contemporary spirituality tends to present itself as an alternative to the disempowering gender models established religions offer especially to women. In this ethnographically grounded chapter, Fedele and Knibbe argue that in contemporary spirituality discourses of gendered empowerment are often based upon a strategy of construction by opposition toward Christianity. Accepting certain dichotomies inherent in the Judeo-Christian worldview, spiritual practitioners sometimes end up reproducing certain stereotypical ideas about the role of women. Without dismissing the empowerment that contemporary spirituality has been shown to bring about for certain women and men, Fedele and Knibbe demonstrate the importance of taking up an analytical perspective on gender in contemporary spirituality, which does not take for granted the discourses of social actors.

Certainty and uncertainty in contemporary spirituality and Catholicism: Finding proof versus destabilizing certainties in popular religion in the Netherlands:

This article is based on several years of ethnographic research in the Netherlands on contemporary spirituality and Catholicism. The emphasis within the networks of contemporary spirituality discussed here is on finding ‘proof’ of ‘the other side’. This quest for certainty is compared to another religious context, dominated by a discourse of liberal Catholicism, where the emphasis is on learning to deal with uncertainty (previously discussed in this journal: see Knibbe, 2008). Here, uncertainty is experienced as liberating. This comparison is the basis for the development of a theoretical approach to understanding both the quest for certainty and the quest for uncertainty, based on Jackson’s essay ‘Minima ethnographica’ (1998). The article ends with a reflection on the implications of these findings in relation to the tendency within the sociology of religion to look for causal links between societal changes and changes in religion.

Movimentos Religiosos transnacionáis: da redes a territorios

Este artigo, baseado em trabalho de campo multi-situado, descreve igrejas pentecostais transnacionais originarias da Nigeria. A religiao e frequentemente descrita como desterritorializada, devido aos processos de globalizacao. Neste artigo, a autora argumenta que territorios, localidades e lugares sao em realidade muito importantes para o pentecostalismo nigeriano transnacional, e que igrejas pentecostais africanas, em geral, constituem territorios e lugares de novas maneiras, assim como acrescentam novas dinâmicas as cidades. O poder persuasivo de criar geografas tangiveis ancoradas em predios reais, porcoes de terra e instituicoes e importante para entender como o pentecostalismo transnacional esta impactando as esferas publicas ao redor do mundo.