Method as Identity

The study of religion needs this book. With an eye toward institutional decolonization and conversational revitalization, Driscoll and Miller ask us to reflect on the lies we tell when we talk about proper discipline and right method. Departments of religious studies should read this book and ask themselves what they can do to forge better interpretive futures from the bad normative assumptions of our academic past. -- Kathryn Lofton, Yale University
Some scholars of religion object when religious identities are brought into the academy. They hold that academic work requires a method that maintains a distance from the people one studies. In this incisive book, Christopher Driscoll and Monica Miller push back against this narrative. Rejecting the claim that there is a method free of identity politics, and rejecting the ideology whereby a European, “white” world became modern by painting others as anti-modern, tribal, and religious, Driscoll and Miller offer a very welcome interrogation of those approaches that call themselves the critical study of religion. -- Kevin Schilbrack, Appalachian State University
Miller and Driscoll offer a brilliant and dialogical engagement with leading scholars argue that theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of religion in which they argue that by the very idea of location implies that the scholar of religion cannot ignore identity as an as an important theoretical tool because it embraces and has broad implications for culture, race, gender, class, and ethnicity. In arguing that identity, especially race constitutes a critical analytical tool they rightly call on scholars of religion to develop a critical posture towards race as one of the many social realities in developing a critical understanding of religion because whether intended or not, behind many disinterested approaches lurk the overriding notion of identity which if not checked through critical inquiry, colors the study of religion and deprives methods and theory of providing critical tools to an understanding of the very concrete personal and social dynamics of identity that animate the study (and one might add) the practice of religion. -- Elias Kifon Bongmba, Harry and Hazel Chair in Christian Theology, Rice University
The authors argue that theory-and-method in the study of religion is no more sui generis than its object. Method is shot through with values and interests rooted in the identities of white male scholars from colonizing societies. Method indexes identity. Method is at the cutting edge of distinguishing analyst from data, civilized from primitive, and European “Man” from the rest. Method as Identity is an incisive interrogation of the study of religion that demonstrates how an uninterrogated whiteness haunts every move we make. -- William David Hart, Macalester College
Miller and Driscoll have produced a creative and provocative exploration of identity formation as it plays out in the lives of scholars. Their skillful application critical race theory to a discussion of how our methodological stances signal far more than disinterested analytical frameworks for the advancement of an abstract notion of un-situated knowledge represents an important challenge to any thoughtful scholar. This book will leave many readers uncomfortable, which signals it has something of value to offer. -- Craig R. Prentiss, Rockhurst University, author of Staging Faith: Religion and African American Theater from the Harlem Renaissance to World War II
Christopher Driscoll and Monica Miller challenge the authorizing discourses in the field of Religious Studies that deem “proper” method as being free from socially anchored interests or demands. Method as Identity disrupts disciplinary assumptions about identity-based research and will inspire renewed debate about the formation of our methodological presuppositions. With exuberant style, penetrating criticisms, and generative arguments Driscoll and Miller show the key role of identity in producing scholarship. This strikingly original and provocative reassessment of the field is a pioneering and convincing effort. Driscoll and Miller continue to rise up as indispensable voices in the study of religion. Method as Identity is essential for anyone interested in the past, present, or future of Religious Studies. -- Kristian Petersen, Old Dominion University
For years I’ve been asking myself why scholars using critical, cog sci, or Foucauldian approaches to the study of religion are predominantly white. In this provocative manifesto, Miller and Driscoll begin to offer an answer. Throughout the nineteenth century, the study of religion consisted of white European men making objects of “primitive savages,” thereby establishing distance between the authoritative “science” of religion and foolish, misguided brown peoples all over the globe. Miller and Driscoll suggest that the rhetorical distancing of non-confessional from confessional approaches—the latter often including people of color in the discipline—perhaps serves an analogous rhetorical purpose: to buttress the privilege of white, Euro-American “scientific” approaches over that of others. Turning a “critical” eye back on “critical” approaches themselves, Method as Identity asks crucial questions we, as scholars, are obliged to offer an answer. -- Craig Martin, St. Thomas Aquinas College