David Chidester
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520297654
- eISBN:
- 9780520969933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520297654.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter explores possibilities for locating religious formations at the intersections of culture and economy. Not solely the preserve of professional economists, economy is a term that has ...
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This chapter explores possibilities for locating religious formations at the intersections of culture and economy. Not solely the preserve of professional economists, economy is a term that has expanded in scope to include economies of signs and desires that generate values beyond the pricing mechanisms of the modern capitalist market. To illustrate how religion can be situated in a cultural economy, this chapter focuses on how one animated film, Destination Earth (1956), sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, serves to illustrate a political economy of the sacred in which the oppression of communist collectivism is opposed to the freedom promised by American free-market capitalism. Viewing this film provides an occasion for highlighting three features of the political economy of the sacred: mediations between economic and sacred values; mediations between economic scarcity and sacred surplus; and mediations among competing claims to legitimate ownership of the sacred.Less
This chapter explores possibilities for locating religious formations at the intersections of culture and economy. Not solely the preserve of professional economists, economy is a term that has expanded in scope to include economies of signs and desires that generate values beyond the pricing mechanisms of the modern capitalist market. To illustrate how religion can be situated in a cultural economy, this chapter focuses on how one animated film, Destination Earth (1956), sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, serves to illustrate a political economy of the sacred in which the oppression of communist collectivism is opposed to the freedom promised by American free-market capitalism. Viewing this film provides an occasion for highlighting three features of the political economy of the sacred: mediations between economic and sacred values; mediations between economic scarcity and sacred surplus; and mediations among competing claims to legitimate ownership of the sacred.
David Chidester
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520297654
- eISBN:
- 9780520969933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520297654.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies
This chapter examines a category, “that which is set apart,” which has been crucial for the Durkheimian tradition in the study of religion. Separated from the ordinary, the everyday, or the profane, ...
More
This chapter examines a category, “that which is set apart,” which has been crucial for the Durkheimian tradition in the study of religion. Separated from the ordinary, the everyday, or the profane, the sacred is set apart in such a way that it is central to social formations. Exploring the dynamics of the sacred by viewing Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, which takes us from Christian hair styling to Hindu temple rituals, this chapter shows how the sacred is produced through extraordinary attention, regular ritualization, sacrificial exchanges, and inevitable contestations over the ownership of the sacred.Less
This chapter examines a category, “that which is set apart,” which has been crucial for the Durkheimian tradition in the study of religion. Separated from the ordinary, the everyday, or the profane, the sacred is set apart in such a way that it is central to social formations. Exploring the dynamics of the sacred by viewing Chris Rock’s documentary Good Hair, which takes us from Christian hair styling to Hindu temple rituals, this chapter shows how the sacred is produced through extraordinary attention, regular ritualization, sacrificial exchanges, and inevitable contestations over the ownership of the sacred.
