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Religion, Belief and Action: The Case of Ngarrindjeri 'Women Business' on Hindmarsh Island, South Australia, 1994-1996.
- Source :
-
Australian Journal of Anthropology . Apr2002, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p51. 21p. - Publication Year :
- 2002
-
Abstract
- The question of what role beliefs play in the description of a culture or a religious system, and whether beliefs as such can be 'tested', arose during a dramatic State Royal Commission into an Aboriginal sacred site claim in South Australia in 1995 focused on the proposed Hindmarsh Island-Goolwa bridge. In this paper I examine some aspects of the legal and anthropological defence of the claim and suggest that insufficient distinction was made between belief as an interior subjective state, and as a gloss on a certain disposition to behave that is conventionally defined. Further, the issue of the social testing of belief statements was obscured by re-phrasing the Royal Commission as an attack on the Aboriginal claimants' right to religious belief. Appealing to Needham, Sperber and Quine, and utilising comparative analysis of a similar court case in North America, I suggest an anthropological approach to belief that side-steps some of the critical problems in the anthropology of religion created during the Hindmarsh Island Bridge Royal Commission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *NARRINYERI (Australian people)
*BELIEF & doubt
*RELIGION
*CULTURE
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 10358811
- Volume :
- 13
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Australian Journal of Anthropology
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 6540543
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1835-9310.2002.tb00190.x