Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity:
Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place
Edited by Vaia Touna
Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity is a multi-authored work that tackles the problem of how to examine the historicity of identity. Six scholars of religion, all members of the Culture on the Edge group, engage in a constructive dialogue mediating and critically cross-examining issues of identity formation, suggesting ways of achieving greater theoretical clarity in the study of identity—or better, identity claims—as it takes shape over time and space. The volume is divided into three sites, or what we might call three situations, each of which is representative of a specific act, such as for example, the strategic acts of classification, appropriation, and comparison. Each site then consists of a main chapter, a response from another scholar (who presses further the point of the main chapter while inviting its author to reflect upon their initial argument) and a reply from the author of the main chapter.
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Contents
Preface
Vaia Touna
Introduction: On the Strategies of Identity Formation
Craig Martin
Site I: Acts of Classification
1. Nostalgia and the Discourse Concerning Nones
Steven W. Ramey
2. Response to Steven Ramey: The Constitutive Discourse of Description
Vaia Touna
3. Reply to Vaia Touna: Situated Descriptions
Steven W. Ramey
Site II: Acts of Appropriation
4. Strategizing Subjectivity: Creolization and Intentionality in Studies of Caribbean Religions
K. Merinda Simmons
5. Response to K. Merinda Simmons: When is it OK to Borrow
Craig Martin
6. Reply to Craig Martin: “The Other is Not”: Mediating Specialness and Specificity
K. Merinda Simmons
Site III: Acts of Comparison
7. Writing Women Out of Woman’s Movements: The Discursive Boundaries of Feminism
Leslie Dorrough Smith
8. Response to Leslie Dorrough Smith: Transgressions
Russell T. McCutcheon
9. Reply to Russell T. McCutcheon: Navigating the Politics of Comparison
Leslie Dorrough Smith
Afterword
10. Strategic Acts I and II
Russell T. McCutcheon