{"id":678,"date":"2013-09-20T18:57:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-20T18:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/?p=678"},"modified":"2014-08-13T22:15:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-13T22:15:24","slug":"engaging-culture-from-within","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/engaging-culture-from-within\/","title":{"rendered":"Engaging Culture from Within"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n

My reading of Sarah Pink\u2019s\u00a0Doing Sensory Ethnography<\/em>\u00a0gave the sensation of entering into an entirely new universe.\u00a0 As a good ethnographer, I took Pink\u2019s advice to heart of not \u201cbeing completely prepared\u2026before starting\u201d (Kindle Ed. 1121), I ventured into this new world, totally oblivious to what I would find.\u00a0 What I found was a world disorientating to one who is trained in history where research is primarily through reading and writing.\u00a0 We study at a distant a thing that is done and past.\u00a0 Then we make pronouncements of our findings as if from on high.\u00a0 This is why stepping into the world of Sensory Ethnography is so disorientating, it opens up whole new vistas of ideas, theories, understanding and challenges that required a great deal of processing for the outsider.\u00a0 Like the ethnographer, the startling newness to these ideas require a rethinking of one\u2019s assumptions and experiences, requiring a redefinition of what constitutes research.<\/p>\n

For me, the most challenging concept was that of attentive engagement in research.\u00a0 Here, Pink suggests a radically different form of research.\u00a0 She views \u201cethnography as a participatory practice\u201d which \u201cis framed with ideas of learning as embodied, emplaced, sensorial and empathetic, rather than occurring simply through a mix of participation and observations.\u201d (Kindle Ed. 1535).\u00a0 She suggests that we \u201cknow\u201d through experience and engagement, which are central to this methodology.\u00a0 From the starting points of self-reflexivity and withholding personal agendas, to intimate involvement in the lives of individuals and their cultural practices with all one\u2019s senses, requires the researcher becomes an actual participant in that which is being researched.\u00a0\u00a0 For Pink, knowledge is produced through context (place), negotiations and intersubjectivities. (Kindle Ed. 190).\u00a0 Though this approach does not claim to actually capture a complete understanding, it does \u201cprovide routes into understanding other people\u2019s lives, experiences, values, social worlds,\u201d more than traditional methods of objective observation.\u00a0 (Kindle Ed. 220)<\/p>\n

This idea of the researcher as participant finds support in the fact that our knowing is always made up of interaction with others in a particular context through the involvement all our senses.\u00a0 For a researcher to begin to understand fully a culture, they must experience the cultures specific sensory categories and the moralities attached to the senses and the sensory practices.\u00a0 This personal involvement will elicit the meanings within the sensory experiences that often are not easily visible to the outside observer.\u00a0 No longer is the researcher than required to stand above or outside.\u00a0 The researcher is now embedded in the research and embodies the practices and meanings of those being researched through negotiation, participation and reflexivity.\u00a0 For the historian, to enter in and participate in one\u2019s research is really quite radical and will take some getting used to!<\/p>\n

As I reflect on my historical habits of observation at a distance, it reminded me of my approach to the studying Scripture. Here, Pink\u2019s reminder of the whole array of sensorial detail in any culture, might help open up a far more instructive way to approach Scripture.\u00a0\u00a0 As any religion in ancient times, the Hebrew religion was a cornucopia of the sensory experiences.\u00a0 Their culture was made up of art (highly decorated temple) and food (numerous feasts) and their worship involved music and dance, robes and readings. \u00a0But the one area that I often struggle to even begin to imagine is the sacrificial practices of the temple.\u00a0 Think about it: Animals gathered into a small area along with crowds of people; food smells mixed with the smell of blood and rotting flesh of sacrificed animals; smoke and burning fat and meat along with incense; the smell of crops from the fields that were brought for offerings and the cacophony of animals, priests and people.\u00a0 What a rich array of sensations that would overwhelm any modern city dweller. \u00a0Or think of the Passover meal, filled with tastes that elicited rich memories of God and His might works.\u00a0\u00a0 As Pink reminds us, in these sensory experiences the Hebrews found their very meaning and their place in life and their place with God.\u00a0 Their space was filled with people and animals and feasts and worship.\u00a0 How much then do we miss out in our understanding of Hebrew Scripture by not approaching them as good ethnographers, to try to step into that culture and the lives lived in that world to experience real Hebrew life and religion?\u00a0 Might we gain new insights and knowledge by attentive engagement with Scripture rather than a distant and divorced study of the words before us?<\/p>\n

Lastly, I have to wonder about the state of Church.\u00a0 In light of Pink\u2019s insights that knowing and meaning come through participation, relationships and involvement in the multi-sensory culture, how is the Church today then set up to be a that counter-cultural space where an outsider can come to know more fully the truth of Jesus.\u00a0 It seems in our attempts at being \u201cseeker friendly\u201d, we have become the culture we seek to reach and influence.\u00a0 More often, we sound and smell and look the same as the rest of the world around us!\u00a0 Even entering into our worship services does not startle and unsettle the outsider.\u00a0 If we are so like the outside culture, can the Church be that counter-culture community that challenges the newcomer to a different way of life, of meaning and purpose?\u00a0 Should the Church not be that radical, counter-cultural community: a place that informs through relationships and whose practices provide meaning through sight, sound, touch, taste and smell?\u00a0 Without this radical counter-cultural community to teach and apprentice new believers, is it any wonder that few Christians today exhibit radical changes in their lives upon meeting Jesus and His Church?<\/p>\n

John W.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n

Reblog<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My reading of Sarah Pink\u2019s\u00a0Doing Sensory Ethnography\u00a0gave the sensation of entering into an entirely new universe.\u00a0 As a good ethnographer, I took Pink\u2019s advice to heart of not \u201cbeing completely prepared\u2026before starting\u201d (Kindle Ed. 1121), I ventured into this new world, totally oblivious to what I would find.\u00a0 What I found was a world disorientating […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,264],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-pink-se","cohort-lgp4"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}