Thomas Hauschild, Dr. phil.

Project

"Clash of Civilizations": Mediterranean Geography on the Mircro-Level and Conflict Settlement by Regional Adaptation

Der Gedanke, dass Kultur (z. B. als selbstgestalterische "Mentalität") das menschliche Verhalten durchgängig bestimmen würde, ist prägend für konservative Rhetorik und nationalstaatliche Identitätspolitik. Derselbe Grundgedanke ist aber auch tief in den deutschsprachigen und US-amerikanischen Kulturwissenschaften verankert. Paradoxerweise führt eine reduktionistische Anwendung, z. B. der Foucaultschen Machtkritik im Zusammenhang mit einer textfixierten, letztlich philologisch-historischen Methode partikularer Kulturforschung zu solcher Übereinstimmung.
Als Gegenentwurf zu "Kultur als Text" werde ich zehn mediterrane Kultformen aus Judentum, Christentum und Islam sowie deren politische Fortschreibungen (Fundamentalismen, charismatische Bewegungen) untersuchen. Der Verankerung der Kulte in den Netzwerkbeziehungen und Ökonomien ihrer Mikrolandschaften gilt dabei besondere Aufmerksamkeit. Zugleich gibt der Kulturvergleich den Blick frei für überregional und universal durch die großen Religionen hindurch verbreitete Kulturelemente (Personenkult, Trancepraktiken, religiöse Kunst, Magien, Synkretismen).
In der Zusammenschau von universalen, auch biologischen Aspekten des religiösen Handelns mit lokalen Geografien und Ökonomien entwerfe ich ein Bild von potentiell Frieden stiftenden Gemeinsamkeiten der scheinbar zum "Kampf der Kulturen" aufgestellten populären Religionen. Zugleich werden Möglichkeiten und Grenzen ihrer "kulturspezifischen" Verwertung in politischen Rhetoriken sichtbar.

Lektüreempfehlung

Hauschild, Thomas. "Christians, Jews, and the Other in German Anthropology." American Anthropologist 4 (1997): 746-753.
Hauschild, Thomas. Magie und Macht in Italien. Gifkendorf: Merlin, 2002, 2003.
Hauschild, Thomas mit Sina Kottmann und Martin Zillinger. "Les syncrétismes en Méditerranée." In Paix et guerres entre les cultures. Entre Europe et Méditerranée, herausgegeben von Emilio La Parra und Thierry Fabre, 139-174. Paris: Actes du Sud, 2005.
Hauschild, Thomas. "Beyond Politics. Ecstatic Experience, Fetishism, and the 'Clash of Civilizations' in the Mediterranean." (Manuscript beim Autor erhältlich.)

Colloquium, 06.02.2007

Image and Trance in Mediterranean Folk Religions. From the Theory of Culture to the Theory of Practice

My paper draws together - or perhaps better, intermingles - three themes:

1. The contradictory role of politics in the framework of cultural theory
While in the field of cultural theory essentialism and conservatism are regarded as inherently linked, it is not often recognized that the cultural relativism enjoying widespread currency today also has a potentially conservative side. This conservative aspect is expressed in the concept of the uniqueness of individual cultures. Rather than seeking to identify fundamental factors which give rise to human culture and are in turn shaped by it, scholars, above all in Germany and the USA, seem to be primarily emphasizing the consideration of individual cultures or "civilizations." Such "culturalistic" perspectives are far removed from an understanding of culture as a spatially conditioned/space-related variation on universal human characteristics.

2. Mediterraneanism and deconstruction
It was precisely at the time when the young regional sub-discipline of the Ethnology/Anthropology of the Mediterranean was coming into its own at the beginning of the 1980s that is was vigorously criticized as based on an illusory concept of the region as a cultural unit. As a consequence the predominant analytical focus shifted to the relationship between local, national and global culture and to the regional constructions relating to the continents involved: North Africa, the Near and Middle East, and Europe. It is only in recent years that scholars have begun to recognize that there are indeed shared Mediterranean characteristics, which can be comprehended in terms of a patchwork schema or "unity in diversity" and related to geographic parameters, geostrategic stratifications and shared historical experiences. In the meantime, even the most trenchant critic of Mediterraneanism, Michael Herzfeld, has supported the need for research into the shared characteristics of Mediterranean ideology.

3. Case studies of the "spatial turn" and Mediterranean comparisons
My overall view is that we now have a situation in which misdirected/exaggerated critiques of essentialism and Mediterraneanism have left space for more measured models, which at the same time should certainly abandon neither scepticism regarding source material nor the critique of Eurocentrism.

In this context I present a regional ethnographic example that illuminates the material background of an astounding case of cultural continuity in a Mediterranean niche - the cult and magical practices associated with the sanctuary of Saint Donatus at Ripacandida (Basilicata, Italy). I then go on to analyse the characteristics of the local religious and magical practices I have identified in my southern Italian case study in relation to North African cults and theurgies - taking into account changing functional contexts.

In conclusion I attempt, albeit circumspectly, to use these observations as the basis for drawing a number of culture-theoretical conclusions regarding a theory of "reserves" and the "spatial turn" in the field of cultural studies. The astounding range of characteristics shared by Mediterranean societies in terms of religion, magical practices and related art forms also provides the basis for consideration of how Samuel Huntington's thesis of the "Clash of Civilizations" might be evaluated.


Literature:

ALBERA, DIONIGI, ANTON BLOK, AND CHRISTIAN BROMBERGER (eds.)
2001. L'anthropologie de la Méditerranée/ Anthropology of the Mediterranean. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, Maison méditerranéenne des sciences de l'homme.

DIR, YAMINA
2005 Bilder des Mittelmeerraumes. Phasen und Themen der Forschung seit 1945, Berlin: LIT.

HAUSCHILD, THOMAS
2002 Macht und Magie in Italien, Gifkendorf: Merlin.

HERZFELD, MICHAEL
1987. Anthropology through the looking-glass: Critical ethnography in the margins of Europe. Cambridge, Cambridgeshire; New York: Cambridge University Press.

HORDEN, PEREGRINE AND NICHOLAS PURCELL
2000. The corrupting sea. A study of Mediterranean history. Oxford; Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.

KRISS, RUDOLF, AND HUBERT KRISS-HEINRICH
1962. Volksglaube im Bereich des Islam, Band II. Amulette, Zauberformeln und Beschwörungen. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

Publications from the Fellows' Library

Hauschild, Thomas (Frankfurt am Main, 2012)

Weihnachtsmann : die wahre Geschichte

Hauschild, Thomas (Frankfurt/Main, 2009)

Image, trance, and the other in Mediterranean folk religion

Hauschild, Thomas (Frankfurt am Main, 2008)

Ritual und Gewalt : ethnologische Studien an europäischen und mediterranen Gesellschaften

Hauschild, Thomas (London [u.a.], 2007)

Syncretism in the Mediterranean : universalism, cultural relativism and the Issue of the Mediterranean as a cultural area

Hauschild, Thomas (Chicago, 2007)

Yoga between Indo-Aryan nationalism and multisited fieldwork

Hauschild, Thomas (2007)

Fremde Dinge - zur Einführung

Hauschild, Thomas (2006)

Politik und Passion

Hauschild, Thomas (Gifkendorf, 2003)

Magie und Macht in Italien : über Frauenzauber, Kirche und Politik Merlins Bibliothek der geheimen Wissenschaften und magischen Künste ; Band 13

Hauschild, Thomas (Münster, 2002)

Inspecting Germany : internationale Deutschland-Ethnographie der Gegenwart ; [Internationale Tagung zur Kultur- und Sozialanthropologischen Deutschlandforschung] Forum europäische Ethnologie ; 1

Hauschild, Thomas (2001)

Der Sinn der Rituale : eine Antwort auf Bernhard Streck