International Studies in Religion and Society, 26. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2016. xi, 299 pp. (Figures.) US$142.00, cloth. ISBN 978-90-04-21723-2.
This ambitious, timely volume brings together thirteen leading and emerging scholars of the anthropology of Christianity in the Australia-Pacific region. Contributors’ discussions focus on expressions of renewal that, irrespective of their transformative, revival, or restorative successes, “have lasting and deep implications for experiences of self and society” (15), and reach beyond “charismatic formulations” to include “cultural, physical, and political dimensions” (2). Geographically based in northern Australia, Samoa, French Polynesia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu, chapters are both firmly situated in their ethnographic contexts and integrated into an overarching comparative framework. Following the editors’ introduction, the volume is divided into three parts, each accompanied by a commentary. Commentaries identify common (and diverging) themes addressed in individual chapters, position chapters in broader theoretical debates, and speak to the contemporaneous, local, national, regional, and global influences and shapes of Christianity.
Part 1, “Christian Transcendence and the Politics of Renewal,” touches on familiar themes in the Australia-Pacific religion: Christianity’s historical and ongoing entanglement with political aspirations and imaginations and, closely related, uncertainties surrounding the shifting roles of indigenous cosmologies, rituals, aesthetics, values, and practices. The four chapters successfully avoid the trap of (more) dialectic discussions of continuity and rupture, and the roles played by mainstream and new Christian movements therein. Instead, they paint a picture that emphasizes the complex negotiations and, as suggested in John Barker’s commentary, “unexpected points of convergence” (26) that define contemporary projects of renewal rooted in the broader historical, political-economic contexts of which these projects are part. In this vein, chapters by Gwendoline Malogne-Fer, Yannick Fer, and Fiona Magowan compellingly explore conflicts surrounding aesthetic and performative practices of renewal as expressions of spiritual and political beliefs, linking these practices to neo-liberal policies, desires for “authenticity” in cultural tourism industries, and broader transnational debates and movements. As (partial) counterpoint, Rodolfo Maggio traces the rise of Pentecostal churches and charismatic worship in the Solomon Islands with reference to debates and frictions within the Anglican Church of Melanesia, rather than as primarily a response to external influences.
In her commentary to part 2, “Christian Renewal and the Transformation of Persons,” Diane Austin-Broos re-emphasizes the significance of anthropological analysis and ethnographic particularities for understanding continuity and change as “made, not simply given” (136), as ambiguous, not definite. Moving beyond a focus on ritual, liturgical experiences, the three chapters in this section elaborate on the daily significance of Christian renewal, specifically its intersections with bodily experiences and expressions of well-being and security. John Taylor discusses the innate connections between sorcery and Christianity in Vanuatu. Carolyn Schwarz and Jessica Hardin explore Yolngu (Northern Territory, Australia) and Samoan Christian narratives and practices surrounding health, healing, and wellness. Particularly intriguing is Hardin’s chapter on Samoan, evangelical Christian quests for healing solutions to lifestyle diseases, accompanying social anxieties, and changing reciprocity practices. Hardin shows how evangelical healing narratives emphasize personal relationships with God. Spirituality is related to the cultivation of a healthy body, a healthy self, and a nuclear family, while broader reciprocity-centered economic practices and developments are deemed to be at the core of metabolic disorders.
Part 3, “Christian Renewal and Change in Regional Development,” brings together a somewhat eclectic set of chapters. Kirsty Gillespie analyses ruptures and continuities in music creation and performance in the Southern Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea. Alison Dundon examines the relationship between Christianity and the construction of modern personhood among indigenous Gogodala missionaries who, between the 1950s and 1980s, were recruited by the Australia-based Unevangelised Fields Mission to spread Christianity to other parts of PNG. Lastly, Debra McDougall discusses the complexities of Christianity’s role in post-conflict, externally sponsored statebuilding in the Solomon Islands. In their diversity the three chapters highlight the scope of Christianity’s historical and ongoing significance in shaping practices and narratives in the Australia-Pacific region. Their complexities also underscore what Joel Robbins, in his commentary to part 3, identifies as a core challenge faced by anthropological inquiries into cultural change: It remains to be seen if and how analyses of “discontinuity projects” (208), such as those discussed by Gillespie, Dundon, and McDougall, allow for developing a sufficient understanding of processes of change and continuity to identify broader theoretical themes. McDougall’s chapter illustrates some of the explicit shortcomings of other contributions. She adds an otherwise largely ignored transnational dimension by acknowledging the intersections between Christianity and the continuing and significant presence of foreign development workers, state-builders, missionaries, and the (global) development discourses to which, in various ways, they belong.
The volume’s strengths—the diversity of its contributions, the framing by means of commentaries and the broader comparative aspirations—are also its primary weakness. Individual chapters offer intriguing ethnographic case studies that convincingly demonstrate the significance of placing any debates on renewal projects in broader, local, regional, global, religious, social, economic, and political developments, practices and narratives. Yet, taken together, they leave the reader wanting more. In their introduction, Magowan and Schwarz emphasize the collection intends to contribute to anthropological studies of Christianity beyond the geographical confines of the Australia-Pacific. However, with notable exceptions, Joel Robbins and Debra McDougall in particular, chapters and commentaries only speak briefly or indirectly to non-Pacific anthropologies of Christianity and the wider-reaching theories of cultural change. This said, this volume makes a noteworthy contribution to analyses of renewal and conflict surrounding Christianity in Oceania in their ethnographic particularities and from a comparative perspective by explicitly bringing together Australia and the Pacific.
Stephanie Hobbis
The University of British Columbia, Kelowna, Canada
pp. 872-875