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Shamanism


Web link: link.springer.com/10.1007/9...

Pages: 1 - 4

Abstract

Shamanism is a contested term with missionary overtones that conceptually describes expressions of ecstatic religiosity in the non-Christian worlds of Asia, Africa, Australia, and non-Christianized America. Nevertheless, despite its Christian overtones, this term has enjoyed vast descriptive significance for anthropological research. While an exhaustive range of anthropological definitions remains outside the scope of this article, it suffices to mention that Shamanism was conceptually defined as a product of the Eurocentric and anthropological gaze that inverted its own non-ecstatic, scriptural, and intellectual Christian expression, by projecting ecstatic religion into the non-Christian Shamanism, thereby essentializing and fetishizing non-Christianity.