Uses Of Social Theory In Comparative Religious Studies: Assessing Chidester's Social Redescription Of Religion In South Africa

In analysing "sociality" (the formation of inclusive or exclusionary collective identities), "materiality" (gendered bodily performances of rituals, sensory experiences and the desire for material objects) and "exchange" (communist or capitalist economic exchanges in rituals of gift-giving and expenditure) as three aspects of religion within local and global contexts, David Chidester has used the social theories of Durkheim, Bataille, WEB Du Bois, Weber, Marx-Adorno-Horkheimer, Benjamin and others. The purpose of this paper will be to assess what we have gained from Chidester's use of such social categories to redescribe religion in South Africa within a global context, by relating Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa (2012) to his preceding oeuvre of twenty years, particularly Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture (2005), Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa (1996) and Religions of South Africa (1992). In line with the aim of this panel I will, in assessing Chidester's social redescription of religion in South Africa within a global context, reflect on the legitimacy of using etic vis-à-vis emic categories.