AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

The Anthropologyof SecularismFenella CannellDepartment of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science,London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom; email: f.cannell@lse.ac.uk

Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010. 39:85–100

First published online as a Review in Advance onJune 14, 2010

The Annual Review of Anthropology is online atanthro.annualreviews.org

This article’s doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.012809.105039

Copyright c© 2010 by Annual Reviews.All rights reserved

0084-6570/10/1021-0085$20.00

Key Words

religion, modernity, spirituality, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism

Abstract

Recent debates on this topic have been heavily shaped by two paradigms:Asad’s deconstructivism and Taylor’s Catholic/Hegelian revisionism.This article outlines the arguments of each but frames them within thelonger history of arguments that make claims for the reality of secular-ization and alternate sources for claims that “the secular” is a histori-cally constructed category, including arguments from radical theologyand (differently) in the anthropology of India. It is argued that implicitclaims for the hierarchical ordering of reality in modernity, in whichthe political is seen as more real than the religious, continue to cre-ate disjunctures in the range of debate that new ethnography has theopportunity to address.

85

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

INTRODUCTION

I begin by putting my cards on the table. I donot myself write from a faith position, but Iam a sceptic about secularism as some of myfellow social scientists are sceptics about reli-gion. I am not convinced that there is such athing as an absolutely secular society nor thatthere can be such a thing as a perfectly secu-lar state of mind. I agree with those who ar-gue that the secular is a historically producedidea, a theory about how things are or couldbe, and not an inescapable or inevitable pro-cess or fact (compare Dumont 1985, Milbank1990). Like other powerful ideas, however, ithas many centrally important material effects,as when it is politically institutionalized andbecomes programmatic. These material effectshave been intensified where people hope or fearthat secularism may be an inevitable condition,linked with the processes of modernity. That isto say, its effects—like the effects of some reli-gious faiths—vary according to how far peoplebelieve in it and in which ways.

This review is not centrally concerned withmy own opinions. But stating them in thesesimple terms may help because the literatureconsidered here circles constantly around theproblem of the relation of religion to moder-nity. Thus although much of this discussion isbeyond our scope here, the reader should notethat the meanings of “secular” and “secular-ism” are constantly shifting in the literature,depending on whether a given author believesthat they are real. Two linked discussions are(a) the question of whether social science canproceed only through a thoroughly seculartheory and (b) the question of whether it is true,as some think, that, although the reality of thesecular is moot, it is necessary to act as thoughwe believed in it to limit conflict between faithgroups or to defend other treasured values inthe public sphere, including, but not confinedto, democratic politics and human rights.

I begin with a brief survey of secularizationtheory, which mounts the most committed de-fense of the reality of the secular. I then con-sider the recent and highly influential body of

writing by Asad, Hirschkind, and Mahmood,which questions this and all the terms of theolder debate in the context of the discussion ofcontemporary Islam, drawing on the ideas ofFoucault and others. Next, I discuss the impor-tant body of work on Indian secularism, whichexamines the ethnographic meaning of the sec-ular in a given context and thus relativizes itdifferently from deconstructivism. In the lastsection, I touch on some of the thinkers out-side anthropology who have written key workson the problem of secularism, works that oftenset the terms of anthropological debate at oneremove; I also consider writing now emergingon other parts of the world, which may allow usto begin to develop a genuine comparative an-thropology of secularisms based on particularhistorical and local studies.

SECULARIZATION THEORYAND ITS LEGACIES

The terms of the current anthropological lit-erature on secularism are set in relation toboth classic and recent developments in sec-ularization theory. This debate could in itselfexceed the space allotted for this article (see,e.g., Casanova 1994, chapter one; Dobellaere1998), so I give only a brief discussion here.

Classic secularization theory derives mainlyfrom anglophone sociological work conductedin the 1960s by Luckmann (1970), Berger(1990), Talcott Parsons (1960), Luhmann(1982) and others. These authors produced var-ious interpretations of the foundational soci-ology of Durkheim (1971) and Weber (1946,1963, 1976), which had explored the linksbetween Western modernity and the declineof traditional religions. Bryan Wilson (1966)and others then continued to synthesize thesepropositions, producing a widespread consen-sus among sociologists over four decades.

Neither Durkheim nor Weber offered astrongly teleological view of modernity. We-ber’s focal interest was in the unique featuresof Western historical development, which hemaintained could never be literally repeatedelsewhere, although comparable forms of

86 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

rationalization might occur within differentregional or religious traditions. Weber alsoclearly distinguished between the analysis ofthe origin of an idea or institution (e.g.,Christianity) and the analysis of its histori-cal spread or transposition (e.g., in colonialconversion). Commentators such as Parsonsrecognized these features of Weber’s thought(Parsons 1963) and drew attention to his famousessay on the Protestant Ethic (Weber 1976) as aspecific case study of historical Europe, not asa template for the universal study of moderni-ties. Both Luhmann and Berger also focusedon Western modernity, arguing that religiousmodalities transformed in complex ways, ratherthan simply being discarded. Nevertheless, in-terpretations of this work often drifted toward aconvergence theory view that Western moder-nity would provide a template for modern-ization processes elsewhere; secularization wasunderstood as both sign and consequence of aninevitable modernity. The definition of secu-larity often remained implicit.

Although the debate has now moved on con-siderably, some influential scholars still defendclassic secularization positions. For instance,Bruce proposes that the key issue to be ad-dressed is still what he suggests is the convinc-ing empirical evidence of decreasing religiousparticipation and increasing religious indiffer-ence in the Western world. The pluralism ofmodern society compared with a more sociallyhomogeneous past is crucial; it is the perceptionof the possibility of choice that propels the split-ting and decline of religion “[f]rom [c]athedralsto [c]ults” (Bruce 1996). Bruce believes that in-stitutional fissure (rather than modern scienceper se) is causally linked to the rise of religiousindifference. Religion can no longer be takenso seriously, and (redeploying Nietzsche’s fa-mous phrase), for Bruce, “God is dead” (2002)in modern Britain.

Whereas changes in institutional forms andcongregational attendance in Britain are welldocumented, their connection to religious in-difference in Britain or elsewhere is contested(e.g., Davie 1994). Bruce’s later work makesless-clear-cut claims about the uniformity of

secularization at the global level than does hisearlier writing, but he continues to argue thatBritain and indeed the United States confirmhis views. In the U.S. case, he asserts that thepersistently high levels of church affiliation andfaith in God in America compared with levels inEurope are a transitional phenomenon linkedto the history of U.S. immigration and therole of religion as a marker of ethnic identity.Rejecting the criticism that his views are teleo-logical, Bruce nevertheless predicts that trendsin American Protestantism indicate a repetitionof the European experience: “Privatization, in-dividualism and relativism are now affecting theUS churches in the way they did the Britishchurches in the middle of the twentieth cen-tury” (Bruce 2002, p. 227).

This kind of argument was criticized by anearly and continuing dissenter on secularizationamong sociologists: Martin (2005). Martin’swork has stressed that secularization can takequite different routes within different globalcontexts, has argued for the value of seeingmodernity as capable of taking religious forms(for instance, in Latin America), and has beenalert to continued Christian valences in appar-ently secular Western Europe. However, suchviews were shared by few other sociologistsbefore the late 1980s.

Since the resurgence of so-called politicalreligion in the 1980s, academic positions havechanged considerably. Thus Casanova, writingin 1994, described a volte-face in sociologicalopinion and asked, “Who still believes in themyth of secularization?” (Casanova 1994, p. 11).I propose that somewhat uncritical oppositionsbetween religion and secularism and betweenthe past and modernity, in fact, continue to beconstitutive of many public areas of debate andsome important academic arenas.

Secularization arguments appear to be a de-fault position at the borders of the academic,the journalistic, and the political (compareBenthall 2009). Convergence theory inter-pretations have often been combined withsubtraction theory interpretations of moder-nity in which, as Milbank (1990) has argued,some scholars claimed or assumed that the

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 87

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

contemporary world has acquired a privilegedgrasp of reality compared to the past, bydiscarding religious illusion. Modern scienceis cast as offering access to material reality,whereas religion is cast as an expression of(personal) childishness or (collective) immatu-rity. As Taylor (2007, p. 636) has noted, someindividuals are drawn to the idea (based ona misinterpretation of Nietzsche) that facingman’s aloneness in the universe is the most cru-cial guarantee of toughness of character and ofmind. Thus we can understand the glee withwhich some commentators greeted the Ameri-can Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) of2001 (http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org) and its follow-ups to 2009, which ap-pear to show statistically that the number ofAmericans who believe in God, although stilloverwhelming, is gradually decreasing; refuta-tions from the opposite camp were equally vo-cal. The trends recorded by ARIS are clearlyimportant, although the survey actually mea-sures a rise in the numbers of Americans whoanswer that they are of “no religion,” whichleaves open the question of what this statementmeans emically. But where liberal political po-sitions are often aligned with “secular” outlooksand conservative positions with “religious” out-looks (compare Harding 1987, 1994, 2001), asin the United States, both sides have a high stakein interpretation.

A perception that the link between moder-nity and secularization is somehow obvious hasalso played into the enormous interest in thedebates over the “new atheists” (Beattie 2007).Dawkins (2006) argues at length both that re-ligion is responsible for most of the atrocitiesin world history and that religion is a formof fallacious explanation of the origins of theworld, now superceded by scientific accountssuch as neo-Darwinism. His critics have opinedthat Dawkins does not understand theologywell; as Terry Eagleton puts it, “Christianitywas never meant to be an explanation of any-thing in the first place. It is rather like sayingthat thanks to the electric toaster we can forgetabout Chekhov” (Eagleton 2009, p. 7, emphasis

in original). Nevetheless, the popular appeal ofthe idea that the relative truth claims of religionand science can be somehow settled in straightcontest is clearly strong, and this mindset ac-counts for the unusual mainstream success ofbooks such as cognitive anthropologist Boyer’sReligion Explained, which seeks to show that re-ligion is simply an unwanted “side effect” of di-verse human mental processes, which evolvedfor other reasons (Boyer 2001, p. 330; for animportant critique, see Bloch 2008).

Certain ideas about secularization, there-fore, have entered popular culture and havethemselves become a form of ethnographic da-tum. Insofar as many people believe seculariza-tion to be inevitable in modernity, it may evenbecome in some places a partly self-fulfillingprophecy (Cannell 2006). In other cases, it isclear that people are rejecting the term religionitself, while attempting (sometimes in contra-dictory ways) to create forms of practice thatmany anthropologists would still classify as re-ligion (e.g., Luhrmann 1989, Pike 2001). Anunusual degree of overlap exists between termssocial science uses in the analysis of contem-porary forms of religious and secular experi-ence and the terms that informants may use indaily life. Anthropologists are potentially wellplaced to record this ethnographically and soperhaps exit from some of the circular aspectsof general-order analysis.

If for some secularization theorists theinstitutional changes in mainstream Westernreligion are causally linked to the rise ofreligious indifference, other trends of thinking,drawing on Luckmann (1970) and ultimately onDurkheim (1971 [1915]), have stressed insteadthe transmutation of collective religion into amodern, nontheistic religion of the individual.Perhaps the best-known current proponentof this view is Heelas (1996), who revisits thisline of analysis via a distinctive emphasis onthe importance of 1960s counter-culture; forHeelas, this is a key period in which peoplebegan to abandon the mainstream churchesprimarily because they disliked churches’claims to authority, and people redirected their

88 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

energies toward multifarious individual quests,often preferring to define these as spiritual butnot religious. Heelas has worked with Wood-head (Heelas et al. 2004) to analyze the declinein U.K. Christian congregations from thisperspective (but compare Smith 2008 who sum-marizes the case against). Heelas’s most recentbook presents a significant revision to his earlierviews; in replacing his earlier uses of the termsself-spiritualities and New Age with the phrase“spiritualities of life” (Heelas 2008, p. 26), heseeks to correct any implication that new re-ligious formations are trivial and to illuminatetheir connections with Romantic philosophy.

The widespread popular avoidance of theterm religion is clearly an important fact. Yetthe potential hazard with this debate is thatit becomes tautologous; some analysts claimto demonstrate from it that religion is clearlydeclining, whereas others claim that spiritualpractices are ultimately (implicitly) religious.There is scope for reading the evidence eitherway, depending on the definition of religionconsidered allowable. The material presented istherefore interesting and valuable, but the de-bate is unlikely to provide an unequivocal def-inition of the relationship between secularityand modernity.

Classic secularization arguments have raisedcrucial questions about modernity, but theyhave not always been historically nuanced.There is a tendency toward broad-brush con-trasts between a religious past and a secularpresent, which disregards many inconvenientfacts. One problem is a relative indifference tothe history of secularization itself, as an idea,and not just as an automatic mechanism. At thepolitical level, it is clear that claims to be secu-lar became closely bound up with the ideologiesand policies of nation-states, especially in thenineteenth century. Such ideas may have beenmost characteristic of West European nations,but they were exported to many other partsof the world, both in European colonialismand in many noncolonized indigenous states,which saw secularism as one means to emulateand overtake European progress. To anticipate,

this history of transmission is one of Asad’scentral concerns, whereas much of the recentwork by anthropologists of India understandssecularism as an aspect of state ideology, colo-nial or local.

Casanova’s central book, Public Religionsin the Modern World, offered a considerableadvance on most previous sociological writersexcept Martin, precisely because Casanova isinterested in historical variation. Casanovasuggests that secularization theory has con-fused three premises that should, in fact, bekept separate: (a) the historical process ofdifferentiation in Western modernity throughwhich religion has come to be objectified andseparated out from other functions, particu-larly politics and economics; (b) the idea thatreligion necessarily exits the public spherein modernity and becomes privatized; and(c) the claim (dating back to Enlightenmentphilosophy) that religion as sentiment andpractice will “tend to dissipate with progressivemodernization” (Casanova 1994, p. 7).

For Casanova, the third claim is patentlyfalse, and he argues that much previous discus-sion has proceeded against overwhelming evi-dence of continued religious activity in Europeand America only because the myth of secu-larization had been taken to be axiomatic. Thesecond claim he views as only one possibilityamong a range of actual historical outcomes tobe explored. The first claim, the idea of differ-entiation of functions in modernity, however,he accepts as a historical reality.

The central section of the book is givenover to a close examination of five case stud-ies: the cases of Spain, Poland, and Brazil,followed by discussions of evangelical Protes-tantism and of American Catholicism. Thefocus on Catholic contexts is important toCasanova partly because these contexts are of-ten backgrounded in Protestant-inflected Whighistory. Casanova argues that the claims of thenation-state to autonomy from religion concealabsolutist monarchs’ actual reliance on the an-nexation of religious mana. He further claimsthat the decline of a public role for religion

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 89

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

has been exaggerated everywhere and may becentral where (as in Soviet Poland) the popu-lation has regarded the secular government asillegitimate. Finally, Casanova argues that bothCatholicism and Pentecostal Protestantism aregrowing in new, deterritorialized forms.

On the question of religious values inmodernity, Casanova proposes that decline is apossible, perhaps a majoritarian, but not a nec-essary consequence of differentiation. He sug-gests that where churches have accepted dises-tablishment most rapidly, they may in fact havesuffered the least decline in popular support andparticipation as they found other arenas of pub-lic discourse in which to engage.

In a more recent article, Casanova (2006)revisits and updates his arguments in thelight of intervening events and in responseto Asad. He identifies three limitations of hisearlier position: (a) His focus was restricted toWestern Christendom and its inheritors, (b) heemphasized civil society as the key public spaceof religions in modernity, and (c) he focused onthe nation-state rather than the transnationaldimensions of modern religion. His responseis ready acknowledgment of the importance ofwider comparisons and rephrases some earlierconclusions. For example, he comments that“the European concept of secularization is nota particularly relevant category for the ‘Chris-tian’ United States” (Casanova 2006, p. 9)because in the United States the advance ofthe secular (as differentiation) has, in fact, beenaccompanied both by continued high levels ofreligious adherence and by continued publicroles for religion. He also underlines the di-versity of European developments. He furtheracknowledges that other religious traditionsmay not construct the same tension betweenthe categories of religious and secular (i.e.,worldly) and therefore that the relationshipbetween modern differentiation and religionmay unfold quite differently in, for example,Chinese Confucianism and Daoism. We willsee in the third section below that this issuehas, in fact, already been taken up in a traditionof Indianist and other regional anthropologies,which is apparently not familiar to Casanova.

ASAD AND THEDECONSTRUCTION OFRELIGION AND THE “SECULAR”

Asad has defined much of the recent anthropo-logical discussion of the secular. His Formationsof the Secular (2003) and, by anticipation, his Ge-nealogies of Religion (1993) explicitly challengeanthropologists to contribute more fully to adebate that had long been dominated by polit-ical science and political philosophy. Invokingthe comparative tradition of Mauss, which per-mits the setting side by side of “lifeways” fromdifferent times and places (Asad 2007, p. 17),Asad offers a vigorous challenge to the seem-ing obviousness and inevitability of the secularin the modern. His anthropology of secularism(as a form of political constitution that followsthe development of the concept of the secu-lar) and secularization (as a particular histor-ical instance of the adoption of secular logic)unravels some of its component concepts andreveals their development as historically con-tingent rather than as fatefully necessary.

Asad focuses closely on the entanglement ofsecularism with capitalist liberal democracies innation-states, of whose politics and rhetorics heis an incisive critic. Indeed, he is less hopefulof benevolent outcomes from the liberal pub-lic sphere than is either Connolly (1999) orTaylor (1999, 2007), with each of whom he en-gages mainly on this particular question. Whilediscarding any essentialist definitions of Westversus non-West, Asad also retains a clear gripon the idea that secularism was a concept withparticular geographical and historical locationsand patterns of export, first from Europe andthen from America, following lines of globalcapitalist inequality.

Asad asserts that liberal secularism is char-acterized by the claim to know what nature,including universal human nature, is (but seeDas 2006) and by the myth of progress, whichsuggests that all societies should be travelingtoward this same understanding. Secularism,he tells us, has become a hegemonic cluster ofprojects in the contemporary world. It permitsand develops certain ways of being and living,

90 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

while disdaining, tacitly prohibiting, or stunt-ing others. The central sections of Formationsof the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity at-tempt to show this line of thinking in relationto concepts of subjectivity, agency, and rights.Asad pays particular attention to claims thatdemocractic politics alleviates human suffering.On one hand, he argues that suffering has notbeen reduced, but merely deflected onto alter-nate (often non-Western) targets and managedthrough a different aesthetic. On the other, hedraws our attention toward ways in which sec-ular logics refuse to permit certain kinds of“passionate” agency, which involve attributingmeaning to pain (the key example here is re-ligious asceticism, but he also discusses child-birth), but instead outlaw these as irrational andtherefore unjustified.

Asad thus rephrases the dilemma often dis-cussed as the clash between universal rights andminority rights by asking under which condi-tions some people come to be considered asminorities at all. Liberal secularism’s claims totolerance, he argues, will always reach a limitwhen the fundamental premises of its world-view are challenged; at this point, “minorities”are prevented from speaking about alternate re-alities, either by persuasion or by force.

Yet although he often seems to sympathizewith the practitioners of counter-hegemonicways of life in the modern world, those whosepassionate and embodied experiences workagainst the grain of liberal rationalism, Asadhas also argued for the preservation in politicallife of a reconstructed secularism (Asad 2001,p. 147; compare Bangstad 2009, p. 192), and hedistances himself from the views of theologiansand others for whom religion is a greater real-ity than secularism is. He dislikes, for instance,any arguments that suggest there may be an un-derlying and transformed religious componentto apparently secular ideas including national-ism because, as he says, “I am arguing that ‘thesecular’ should not be thought of as the spacein which real human life gradually emancipatesitself from the controlling power of ‘religion’and thus achieves the latter’s relocation” (Asad2003, p. 191). Rather, he maintains that the

contrast between religious and secular, like thatbetween disenchantment and enchantment (butsee Lambek 2005), is a false binary producedposthoc by the ideological lens through whichthe Western present views the past and else-where as premodern.

As in his earlier work on religion, Asad’sinterest in Foucault is evidenced by his par-ticular attention to the constraining and pro-ductive powers of practice as well as of ideol-ogy; he writes, ‘we should look to what makescertain practices conceptually possible, desired,mandatory—including the everyday practicesby which the subject’s experience is disciplined”(Asad 2003, p. 36). His own books, of course,are not first-hand ethnographies of such prac-tices, but two of his former students have eachresponded to the call for such ethnographywith widely admired results. Both anthropol-ogists study the Islamic pietist movement inEgypt. Mahmood’s densely considered book(2005) and her key articles (2001a,b) conduct anethnographic examination of the women’s pietymovement in Cairo against the grain (as she tellsus) of Mahmood’s own secular progressivistand feminist assumptions about what femaleagency should be (Mahmood 2005, p. xi). Themosque movement Mahmood studies strikinglyincludes precisely the constituency of women—middle class and increasingly educated, oftenprofessional—who might be expected to adoptsecular values (2005, p. 66). The movementis also innovative in allowing women to teachwomen on Islamic matters. While always al-lowing for the macropolitical context in whichmany Egyptians are critical of the post-Sadatsecular government, and especially of its West-ern leanings, Mahmood finds narrowly politicalexplanations inadequate; the aim of this move-ment is to become more pious. Although thedominance of secular logic makes it inevitablethat alternative self-fashionings must engagestate politics if they are to succeed, these ethicalpractices of self-fashioning are not reducible totheir political means (2005, p. 194). These aimsare pursued through a program of prayer thatbegins with the deliberate awakening of con-science and the rousing of the will, but whose

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 91

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

success can be gauged by the degree to whichprayer becomes an embodied desire and needin itself. Understanding such practices, Mah-mood argues, facilitates a critique of many ofthe binaries through which the anthropology ofreligion may often be expressed, including theopposition between ritual and sponteneity andthat between autonomous agency and subor-dination. Hirschkind’s absorbing study (2006)similarly explores embodied disciplines withincurrent Islam but focuses on the (male) use ofcassette sermons and the distinctive practices ofaudition cultivated by their users.

These authors have sought to counterstereotypical views of Islamic pietism in thepublic debate on Islam and secular politics(Hirschkind & Mahmood 2002, and see in-terventions by each author at http://www.theimmanentframe.org). Their theoreticalapproaches do have limitations as well as gains,however. Mahmood attends to the comparativeimplications of the Egyptian case with respectto the construction of women’s agency andidentity politics (2005, chapter 5 and epilogue)but sometimes claims that a cross-cultural com-parative approach to prayer and religious self-construction would inevitably mislead (2001b,p. 844). Despite his invocation of Mauss, Asad’sown Foucauldian antiessentialism tends to pro-duce a resistance to the search for similaritiesand a preference for the highlighting of irre-ducible differences across contexts. Connect-edly, his focus on the contrast between the dis-continuities of Christianity as an object andthe potentialities of Islamic tradition some-times appears as an inconsistency in his workand even risks reproducing the dualistic con-trast between them, which he seeks to unravel(compare Bangstad 2009, Caton 2006).

In another vein is Bowen’s recent researchon French Islam, published as a lucid accountof the development of the specific Frenchstate view of secularism, or laicite, and itsconsequences for the crisis over veiling inpublic schools (2008) and an ethnography ofunderstandings of being Muslim and of beingFrench (2009) in the suburbs of Paris, thelocation of the 2005 clashes between police and

French Muslims. Bowen’s first study brings tolife the point made by many commentators:that there is wide variation between secularismseven within Europe. French laicite is groundednot only in the French Revolution’s productionof a particular idea of citizenship, but also inthe extended efforts by the state to disentangleitself from reliance on French Catholic insti-tutions, particularly in the field of education.In France, Bowen tells us, citizenship and thedignity of the individual are guaranteed by acertain compulsory Republican homogeneityof self-presentation in public domains, includ-ing all domains of public employment such ashospitals and schools. By contrast, variation ofopinion on matters that may implicitly chal-lenge Republican assumptions must be reservedto the private sphere. These are not merely the-oretical issues; Bowen tells us that abstract andelite discourse is woven into media and populardebate in France to an unusual extent, definingthe ways in which (for instance) documentaryportrayals of French Muslims are produced andconsumed. The French affaire du voile and thelaw that banned the wearing of religious signsin French schools may have conspicuouslyavoided the issues of the economic and socialdisadvantage of France’s immigrant workforce,the legacy of colonialism, etc., but it did sothrough a deeply felt French horror of publicdisplays of religious affiliation. Bowen arguesthat (as well as transgressing French feminism)headscarves were experienced by non-MuslimFrench people as a deliberate communication ofdifference and claim of (moral) superiority in apublic context in which all should relate as equalcitizens. It is for these historically constructedyet viscerally felt reasons, he argues, that theFrench state finds it so difficult to accommo-date the claim of large numbers of people inthe Parisian suburbs and elsewhere to identifythemselves as both French citizens and visiblyobservant Muslims. Yet the reasons for wearingthe veil among French schoolgirls are complex,highly various, and often less concerned withcommunication to non-Muslim others thanwith the production of a certain kind ofself-formation.

92 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

Among other contributions, Hefner &Zaman’s (2006) Schooling Islam: The Cultureand Politics of Modern Muslim Education offersvaluable comparisons from inside and outsideEurope, with a clear-sighted introduction byHefner, and these issues are usefully related tothe public sphere debates by Taylor and others(Taylor et al. 2008).

INDIAN SECULARISM

Before the recent explosion of debates on Islam,however, secularism was already being consid-ered comparatively in the context of Indian pol-itics. This literature is especially thought pro-voking for anthropologists. Indian politiciansand intellectuals almost universally remarkedthat secularism was an idea that devolved fromEuropean history and philosophy and was im-ported into India under British colonialism. Itsrelevance to the Indian situation could there-fore not be assumed. This indigenous debatehas shaped the academic literature on the sub-ject, giving it helpful analytic purchase.

We may consider the current literatureto have started with Smith’s (1963) India asa Secular Nation, which took as its topic theobservation made by the then-Indian Pres-ident Dr. S. Radhakrishnan: “It may appearsomewhat strange that our government shouldbe a secular one, while our culture is rootedin spiritual values” (quoted in Smith 1963,p. 146). Smith explores a wide range of possibleexplanatory factors. Beginning with what hetakes to be the central feature of Westernsecularism—that is, the historical assertion bythe state of its autonomy from the church andreligion—he reviews the major Asian religionsto consider whether some would be morelikely to provoke or tolerate parallel moves inAsian states. Smith concludes that Hinduism,with no centralized clerical institutions likelyto compete with those of the state and with acyclical view of history that does not encouragereligious intervention in political fields, wasindeed an unlikely precursor for secularism.Smith reviews the three central explanations(and justifications) offered for secularism in

India itself. First, he quotes the argument ofmany supporters of the Congress Party. AllIndians must be able to commit to a civic iden-tity not based on any religious precept so thatthe nation is not threatened by perceived dif-ferences between Hindu and Muslim. Second,there is the argument that Indian secularismrests largely on Western models and is rootedin British policies of religious neutrality. Thisview, like the first, tends to accompany a beliefthat state and religion must be separate iffreedom of religion and equal rights are to beprotected. The third view differs: It argues thatancient values of tolerance inherent in Hinduculture are the best guarantee of religious free-doms because Hinduism acknowledges thataspects of the universal divinity are discerniblein all forms of worship. In this definition,secularism comes to be defined as a form ofpluralism with metaphysical foundations andnot, in any sense, as the replacement of reli-gious values by irreligious ones. Smith himselfleans toward the view that the separation ofstate and religion is a firmer defense againstpotential interreligious violence. He pointsto aspects of the Hindu formula that wouldnot be acceptable to Muslims, Christians, andothers (perhaps even Buddhists). Smith tendsto link Western secularism with democraticmodernity and progress.

His discussion was nevertheless prescient. Itwas only after the eruption in 1992 of Hindufundamentalist violence at the Ayodhya mosquethat writers turned again to the topic of Indiansecularism. How had Hindu tolerance degener-ated into the actions of the Rashtriya Swayam-sevak Sangh (RSS) and other radical groups?Madan (1997) argued that fundamentalistmovements in religions including Hinduismand (earlier) Islam and Sikhism were a responseto the hidden intolerance of Western-style sec-ularist policies. Madan is among a number ofscholars who argue that the European Enlight-enment was not simply a humane and liber-ating movement; it also contained oppressivepotentials, in particular, the tendency to por-tray religious thinking as false with respect toscience and the accompanying stereotyping of

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 93

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

religious people as backward. Madan is some-what sceptical of romantic views of Hinduismas perfectly tolerant. Hinduism may extend tol-erance to other faiths, but encounters withWestern objectifications of religion can awakenits own defensive, nationalist, and territorial-ist potentials. Western models of a state freedfrom religion cannot, in Madan’s view, succeedin India. This ideal was “a gift of Christianity,”specific to and only feasible within a particu-lar European, post-Protestant context (Madan1997, p. 754).

The founder of Indian independence andIndian secularism, Mahatma Gandhi, was, ofcourse, a deeply religious Hindu who arguedthat faith-based respect for all religions wasthe best foundation for tolerance and peacein India. Gandhi argued that the state shouldnot support any religious organization and thatit should govern on areas of common citi-zen interest, permitting the free expression ofreligious practices. His successor JawarharlalNehru amended this position according to hisown agnostic and progressive views. Nehru ar-gued that India could be ruled only by a govern-ment that afforded equal protection and respectto those of all faiths and none and that the In-dian Constitution should strive to afford equalprotection to all its citizens. This objective,however, has frequently been in tension withIndia’s personal laws, dating back to adminstra-tive arrangements resorted to in the British pe-riod. These allow for the application of differentsystems of Hindu law (also applicable to Jains,Sikhs, and Buddhists) and Muslim and Chris-tian laws to issues such as marriage, divorce,caste, and other issues deemed religious. Deter-mining and maintaining the boundary betweenreligious and civil jurisdictions continue to bedifficult, and the tension between Gandhianand Nehruvian visions of Indian secularismplays out in complex ways. Thus the Hindutva(Hinduness) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hasadvocated the universal application of the civilcode in questions of law and alimony, partlyas an opportunistic strike against Muslims de-fending shari’a-based personal law in thesecontexts.

Mahajan (2003) provides a lucid statementof a Nehruvian position. He argues that thedebate on Indian secularism has been falselypremised on a Western model of separationbetween state and religion. Secularism’s critics(Madan 1987; Mitra 1991; Nandy 1985, 1992)claim that politics without religion is withoutmoral basis; its advocates (e.g., Chatterji 1984,d’Souza 1985, Kumar 1989, Singh & Chandra1985) insist that such a separation is a conditionof continued democracy and civil rights. Maha-jan does not agree that the separation of thestate from religion can only occur in the West;this mindset merely underwrites essentializeddistinctions between East and West. Mahajanargues that the state can guarantee civil freedomby affording equal protection to citizens of allfaiths and none. In Mahajan’s view, the West-ern attempt to make religion uncontentiousby making it private cannot work (in India orthe West) because religions require public ex-pression. Such freedoms can be balanced onlyagainst the protection of other citizens case byhistorical case (Mahajan 2003, p. 934).

The range of this debate is considerable.Chatterjee (1993) tries to find a middle groundto resolve arguments for discarding and re-taining the idea of Indian secularism. Amongdefenders of secularism, Corbridge & Harriss(2000) is an important critique; Beteille (1994)claims that Indian secularism has suffered fromthe “bad advocacy” of academics.

Indian secularism has also been impor-tantly contextualized by recent works exam-ining Hindu nationalism and religious revival.Fuller (1983, 2003) offers a revealing accountof the revival in status of the priests of theMinakshi temple in Tamil Nadu, reversingan earlier sharp decline between independenceand the late 1970s. Fuller lucidly demonstrateshow misleading it would be to see the secu-lar Indian state as simply antireligious. Stateclashes with the temple were driven by a com-bination of Congress Party commitment to thepromotion of Harijan (“untouchable”) rights oftemple access and local Dravidian sentimentagainst North Indian Brahmanism. Conversely,the priests did not oppose state regulation of

94 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

the temple per se, but they did contest the In-dian government’s representation of itself asheir to the local Nyata royal dynasty. As it hap-pened, state modernization of priestly statusvia the demand for more formal education inthe Agamic ritual texts has opened a path forpriests’ self-assertion. The robust confidence ofthe temple priests today is upheld by the recog-nition that although the revival of temple en-dowments by contemporary Indian politiciansmay sometimes be self-interested, it is necessi-tated by the atmosphere of heightened Hindureligious devotion among voters; there is thusno sense of religion moving out of the pub-lic sphere in this setting (compare Van derVeer 2001, Veer & Lehmann 1999). Chatterjee(1993) suggested that the category of religionbecame central to the imagination since colo-nialism of a distinctive Indian national cultureby its elite, whereas Hansen (1999, p. 52) arguesthat early-twentieth-century nationalist claim-ing of religion as a transcendent moral spacepaved the way for its opportunistic annexationby the BJP. Like Fuller, each scholar notes animportant impact of imported and indigenizedunderstandings of secularism on historical de-velopments, but they conclude that what hap-pened in India cannot be fully conceptualizedin terms of the workings of Western states.We may recall here Das’s comment that Asad’sdefinitions sometimes suffer from “a restrictednotion of context” (Das 2006, p. 101). Asad’sclose focus on the history of the secular in theWest, logical for his own project, means thathe does not engage at length with polytheistic(or nontheistic) formations of religion or withthe unexpected forms of secularity, which mightemerge in such contexts.

It continues to prove difficult to separatethe anthropological recognition of the asym-metrical history of colonialism from the as-sumption that modernity has an asymmetricaland homogeneous effect on tradition (Fuller1984, 2003), or secularism on religion. AsSpencer (1995) notes in a thoughtful review ofTambiah’s (1992) account of Sinhala nation-alism, these problems are heightened wherereligious violence is to be explained. The ap-

parent paradox of aggressive nationalism pro-moted by Buddhist monks must steer between“unacceptable primordialism” and “unaccept-able constructivism” (Spencer 1995, p. 358).

“A SECULAR AGE”

As Asad notes, debates on secularism weredominated for many years by writers in po-litical science and political philosophy (e.g.,Habermas 1992) whose interests had been informs of justice, the definition and potentialsof the public sphere, etc. These writers havenot been concerned primarily with a radicalcritique of the concept or origin of secularismas such. Connolly (1999) and Taylor (2007)are clear exceptions, but Asad engages each ofthem on their divergences from his positionrather than on their commonalities. Asadconsiders Taylor insufficiently critical ofliberal democracies, especially their claims tobe “direct-access” societies. Asad also suggeststhat, for Taylor, something like secularism islikely to accompany modern democratic statesall over the world and may guarantee pluralism(Taylor 1999), which from Asad’s point of viewis a naıve and potentially dangerous formula-tion (Asad 2006). An astute close reading ofthese differences between Taylor and Asad isgiven in a recent article by Bangstad (2009),although Bangstad perhaps oversimplifies inclaiming that Taylor views modern life asbenign (Taylor 2007, p. 675).

Like Asad, Taylor sets out to deconstructthe notion of the secular. Unlike Asad, he doesso with the premise that there may be some-thing like a universal human search for reli-gious experience, often defined by Taylor as asearch for fullness of life. In this view, religiousexperience cannot be understood as an aspectof the transformations of (state) power and theforms of knowing these transformations permit.Taylor’s position clearly differs from Weber’scareful avoidance of truth claims about, or spe-cific definitions of, religion. However, to an an-thropologist, and for all the range of his philo-sophical sources (especially Hegel), Taylor’sproject often reads as an extended meditation

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 95

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

on the Weberian concept of “disenchantment”(Weber 1946, 1963; Kippenberg 2005) in itsinterest in accounting for the phenomenologyof modern Western experience of religion andsecularity.

We earlier noted a tendency of classic sec-ularization theory to exaggerate contrasts be-tween a “relatively stable” (Bruce 2002, p. 8)European past where religion was “a single,moral universe” and a fragmented, unstablepresent. The plea is that, in a broad-brushargument, differences between periods in thepast are relatively unimportant. This misleadsnot only because preindustrial European his-tory was scarcely marked by social stasis, butalso because the possibility of radical scepticismwithin the allegedly homogeneous lifeworlds ofthe traditional past has been charted by severalhistorians (e.g., Fulton 2002, p. 65). It is a mis-take to imply that religious pluralism is foundonly in modern contexts because the compari-son with the pluralism of the ancient world iswell known; Taylor, for instance, discusses itat length, evolving the argument that classicalpluralism and atheism did not appeal to a massaudience, whereas European movements afterhumanism were able to do so (Taylor 2007,pp. 80–84). In fact, the more detailed histori-cal information we have, the more complex itbecomes to answer the central question Tay-lor himself sets: Why is it difficult to believein God in the Western present, and why was itdifficult not to at periods of the European past(Taylor 2007, p. 25)? For Taylor, it requires 896pages to begin to trace the unfolding histori-cal processes through which the modern secu-lar came to be thinkable and to feel normal. Heattempts to trace these transformations in theNorth Atlantic world (the heir to Latin Chris-tianity), viewed not as the subtraction of illusionfrom reality but as the creation of new forms ofexperience that had never previously existed butwhich nonetheless come to seem like the obvi-ous medium in which we live.

Taylor maintains that secularity did not de-velop in a simple linear fashion, but ratherthrough a series of doublings-back, reprises andironies that allow, even in modern times, for the

existence of multiple strands of experience or“cross-pressures” (Taylor 2007, pp. 595, 772).Nevertheless, he picks a central strand, whichhe (sometimes) calls the Reform Master Narra-tive (p. 774). Although the long history of Re-form goes back to at least the eleventh century(pp. 786 n.7; 92), he also picks a crucial period,including what we usually call the Reforma-tion and Counter-Reformation (pp. 77ff) butcentrally motivated by the previous (fifteenth)century, when heightened anxieties about deathhelped create the subsequent “rage for order.”For Taylor, as for Dumont (1985) and againhere recalling Weber (1946), the origins of thesecular therefore do not only lie with devel-opments in state politics, nor indeed with theEnlightenment, but with earlier developmentsin which Christian theology ironically played acrucial part (Taylor 2007, pp. 19, 75).

The vast synthetic reach of Taylor’s text is afeature of his argument. He wishes to demon-strate that Christian belief and contemporaryatheistic humanism are philosophical cousins,not irreconcilable opposites, and thus (con-tra Dawkins et al.) to restore the possibilitythat Christian thinking contributes to moderndebate on equal terms. Taylor thus expressessympathy for the views of the radical ortho-dox theologians including Milbank (1990) andPickstock (1998), Milbank having argued sometime ago that “once there was no secular; thesecular as a domain had to be instituted or imag-ined” (Milbank 1990, p. 9, emphasis in original).Milbank’s perspective differs from Taylor’s inlocating the crucial turn in Western thinkingmuch earlier: in deformations of the theologyof Augustine. Dumont (1985) and others havealso suggested an early medieval turning pointfor the crucial developments of Western secu-larism. Taylor (2007) recognizes these views inan epilogue that argues for the validity of “themany stories” (p. 773). One consequent diffi-culty with Taylor’s text is determining whereexactly he differs from many of the authors hediscusses or why some issues and approaches,which might seem equally consequential (suchas the development of capitalist institutions),are discussed relatively little.

96 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

MANY STORIES?

Like Asad, although for different theoreticalreasons, Taylor is concerned primarily with theorigin of “the secular” as a Western histori-cal phenomenon; however, as Indianists haveclearly shown, what happens to such cate-gories once exported is unpredictable, espe-cially where the context is no longer a monothe-istic faith.

At this juncture, anthropologists must surelycontribute to the expansion of the repertoireof ethnographic studies of actual, lived situa-tions (in the West and outside it) in which localpeoples enact their understandings of, interestin, or perhaps total indifference to the secularand the religious.1 Ethnographies of particularforms of secularism are now gradually increas-ing. Navaro-Yashin (2002) offers a thought-provoking account of the ways in which or-dinary people experience the Turkish state.Constructed on a rhetoric of nationalist secu-larism that casts Islam as “unprogressive,” theTurkish state nevertheless revolves around the“uncanny” cult of Kemal Ataturk, a hybrid con-ceiveable only within this particular view of re-ligion. Navaro-Yashin charts the ways in which“fantasies for the state” (p. 155) are producedand reproduced in daily life, even through theidioms of cynicism that attempt to puncture itspretensions. Tambar (2009, p. 519) considersrecent developments in Turkey, reviewing theways in which secularism has become a pop-ulist movement that defines itself against anelite Islamic leadership and proceeds throughthe mechanism of the crowd as much as thevote.

An explicit discussion of secularism has be-gun among anthropologists of the formerly

1One would welcome new perspectives on secularism andJudaism, Orthodox Christianity, and other faiths and prac-tices not prominent in the current literature.

atheist Communist states. Feuchtwang (2009)compares Chinese and Indian secularisms,whereas McBrien & Pelkmans (2008) examinethe ways in which secularism has come to be un-derstood as a religion in post-Soviet Krygystan.Others have examined the view that modernityin African settings is typically religious (e.g.,Meyer 1999).

At a different point of conjuncture to thesedebates, Palmie (2007) and Rutherford (2009)are among those scholars asking in what Amer-ican secular experience might consist (compareEngelke 2009 on aspects of English secularism).Rutherford’s argument—that the category ofbelief, which has lately been avoided by manyanthropologists for its Christocentric bias, isactually a constitutive aspect of secular Amer-ican understandings of action—underscoresthe current degree of disjuncture between thesecularism debates and the more establishedliterature on religious modernity, even in-cluding work on Christian fundamentalisms(e.g., Harding 1987, 1994, 2001). Perhaps thisfailure of engagement is, in part, a consequenceof Asad’s focus on the constitutive differencesbetween Islam and Christianity, but it alsoappears to be part of a more general divergenceof orientation. Although the anthropology ofsecularism still turns toward interdisciplinaryinterlocutors who consider themselves to bewriting on politics, works such as Keane’sprovocative and fascinating Christian Moderns(2007 and see Cannell 2008) most obviouslyengage fellow anthropologists, still tolerant ofthe discussion of transformations of religion,kinship, and exchange. But if this debate re-minds us of anything, it is that these categoricaldistinctions, particularly that between theapparently urgent world of the political andthe seemingly arcane or private domain of thereligious, are themselves only a fiction of thehistorical processes we are examining.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that mightbe perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 97

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author offers particular thanks to Chris Fuller and to Simon Jarvis.

LITERATURE CITED

Asad T. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD:Johns Hopkins Univ. Press

Asad T. 2001. Reading a Modern Classic; W.C. Smith’s The Meaning and End of Religion. In Religion and Media,ed. H De Vries, S Weber, pp. 131–50. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press

Asad T. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. PressAsad T. 2006. Trying to understand French Secularism. In Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular

World, ed. H de Vries, LE Sullivan, pp. 494–526, 763–72. New York: Fordham Univ. PressBangstad S. 2009. Contesting Secularism(s): secularism and Islam in the work of Talal Asad’. Anthropol. Theory

9(2):188–208Beattie T. 2007. The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. London: OrbisBenthall J. 2009. Review of “Beyond belief.” Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 9, pp. 3–5Berger P. 1990 [1967]. The Sacred Canopy. New York: AnchorBeteille A. 1994. Secularism and intellectuals. Econ. Pol. Wkly. 29:559–66Bloch M. 2008. Why religion is nothing special, but is central. Phil. Trans. R. Soc B 363:2055–61Bowen J. 2008. Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressBowen J. 2009. Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in Secularist State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressBoyer PL. 2001. Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors. London:

HeinemannBruce S. 1996. Religion in the Modern World: Cathedrals to Cults. Oxford: Oxford Univ. PressBruce S. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Oxford Univ. PressCannell F. 2006. Introduction. In The Anthropology of Christianity, pp. 1–50. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. PressCannell F. 2008. Review of Keane, “Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter.”

Indonesia 85:147–60Casanova J. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago Univ. PressCasanova J. 2006. Secularization revisited: a reply to Talal Asad. In Powers of the Secular Modern, ed. D Scott,

C Hirschkind, pp. 12–30. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. PressCaton S. 2006. What is an “authorizing discourse”? See Hirschkind & Scott 2006, pp. 31–57Chatterjee P. 1993. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Fragments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressChatterji PC. 1984. Secular Values for Secular India. Delhi: L. ChatterjiConnolly W. 1999. Why I Am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. PressCorbridge S, Harriss J. 2000. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy.

Cambridge, UK: PolityDas V. 2006. Secularism and the argument from nature. See Hirschkind & Scott 2006, pp. 93–112Davie G. 1994. Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging. Oxford: BlackwellDawkins R. 2006. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton and MiffinDobellaere K. 1998. Secularization. In Encylopedia of Religion and Society, ed. WH Swatos Jr. London: Sage.

http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/secularization.htmD’Souza PR. 1985. The church and politics. In Secularism and Liberation: Perspectives and Strategies for India.

ed. RC Heredia, E Mathias. New Delhi: Ind. Soc. Inst.Dumont L. 1985. A modified view of our origins: the Christian beginnings of modern individualism. In The

Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. M Carrithers, S Collins, S Lukes, pp. 93–122.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press

Durkheim E. 1971 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin

98 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

Eagleton T. 2009. Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate. New Haven/London: Yale Univ.Press

Engelke M. 2009. Strategic secularism: Bible advocacy in England. Soc. Anal. 53(1):39–51Feuchtwang S. 2009. India and China as spiritual nations: a comparative anthropology of histories. In Anthro-

pology of Contemporary China, ed. F Pieke. Soc. Anthropol. 19(1):100–8Fuller C. 1984. Servants of the Goddess: The Priests of a South Indian Temple. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ.

PressFuller C. 2003. The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton Univ. PressFulton R. 2002. From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800–1200. New York:

Columbia Univ. PressHabermas J. 1992. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. London: PolityHansen T. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressHarding S. 1987. Convicted by the Holy Spirit: the rhetoric of fundamental Baptist conversion. Am. Ethnol.

14(1):167–81Harding S. 1994. Imagining the last days: the politics of apocalyptic language. In Accounting for Fundamentalisms:

The Dynamic Character of Movements, ed. M Marty, RS Appleby, pp. 57–78. Chicago: Chicago Univ. PressHarding S. 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressHeelas P. 1996. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford,

UK: BlackwellHeelas P. 2008. Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism. Malden/Oxford:

BlackwellHeelas P, Woodhead L, Seel B, Tusting K, Szerszynski B. 2004. The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is

Giving Way to Spirituality. London: Wiley BlackwellHefner R, Zaman MQ, eds. 2006. Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. PressHirschkind C. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia

Univ. PressHirschkind C, Mahmood S. 2002. Feminism, the Taliban, and politics of counter-insurgency. Anthropol. Q.

75(2):339–54Hirschkind C, Scott D, eds. 2006. Power of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and his Interlocutors. Stanford, CA:

Stanford Univ. PressKeane W. 2007. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: Univ. Calif. PressKippenberg HG. 2005. Religious continuities and the path to disenchantment: the origin, sources and the-

oretical core of the religion section. In Max Weber’s “Economy and Society”: A Critical Companion, ed.C Camic, PS Gorski, DM Trubek, pp. 164–82. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press

Kumar R. 1989. The Making of a Nation: Essays in Indian History and Politics. Delhi: ManoharLambek M. 2005. Review of Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular. Am. Anthropol. 107(2):276–77Luckmann T. 1970. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillanLuhmann N. 1982. Religious Dogmatics and the Evolution of Societies, transl. P Beyer. New York: MellenLuhrmann T. 1989. Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Oxford: BlackwellMadan TN. 1987. Secularism in its place. J. Asia Stud. 46(4):747–58Madan TN. 1997. Modern Myths: Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India. Delhi: Oxford Univ.

PressMahajan G. 2003. Secularism. In The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, ed. V Das,

pp. 908–36. Oxford/New York: Oxford Univ. PressMahmood S. 2001a. Feminist theory, embodiment and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian

Islamic Revival. Cult. Anthropol. 6(2):202–36Mahmood S. 2001b. Rehearsed sponteneity and the conventionality of ritual: disciplines of salat. Am. Ethnol.

28(4):827–53

www.annualreviews.org • The Anthropology of Secularism 99

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44

Mahmood S. 2005. The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniv. Press

Martin D. 2005. On Secularization: Towards a Revised Theory. Aldershot, UK: AshgateMcBrien J, Pelkmans M. 2008. Turning Marx on his head: missionaries, “extremists” and archaic secularists

in Post-Soviet Krygyzstan. Crit. Anthropol. 28:87–103Milbank J. 1990. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: BlackwellMitra SK. 1991. Desecularising the State: religion and politics in India after independence. Comp. Stud. Soc.

Hist. 33(4):755–77Meyer B. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh

Univ. PressNandy A. 1985. An antisecularist manifesto. Seminar 315:1–12Nandy A. 1992. The politics of secularism and the recovery of religious tolerance. In Mirrors of Violence:

Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia, ed. V Das, pp. 69–93. Delhi: Oxford Univ. PressNavaro-Yashin Y. 2002. Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ.

PressPalmie S. 2007. Genomics, divination, “racecraft”. Am. Ethnol. 34:203–20Parsons T. 1960. Structure and Process in Modern Society. New York: Free PressParsons T. 1971. Introduction. See Weber 1963, pp. iii–lxxivPickstock C. 1998. After Writing: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy. Oxford: BlackwellPike S. 2001. Desert goddesses and apocalyptic art: making sacred space at the Burning Man Festival. In God

in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture, ed. K McCarthy, EM Mazur, pp. 155–76. New York:Routledge

Rutherford D. 2009. An absence of belief? Posting on Christian Moderns in The Immanent Frame; secularism,religion and the public sphere. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2009/12/01/an-absence-of-belief/

Singh K, Chandra B. 1985. Many Faces of Communalism. Delhi: Voice of IndiaSmith DE. 1963. India as a Secular State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. PressSmith G. 1980. A Short History of Secularism. London: TaurisSpencer J. 1995. The past in the present in Sri Lanka: a review article. Comp. Stud. Soc. Hist. I 37(2):358–67Tambar K. 2009. Secular populism and the semiotics of the crowd in Turkey. Public Cult. 21(3):517–37Tambiah S. 1992. Buddhism Betrayed? Religious Politics and Violence in Sri Lanka. Chicago: Chicago Univ. PressTaylor C. 1999. Two theories of modernity. Public Cult. 11:153–74Taylor C. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA/London: Belknap Press of Harvard Univ. PressTaylor C, Levey B, Modood T, eds. 2008. Secularism, Religion and Multicultural Citizenship. Cambridge, UK:

Cambridge Univ. PressVan Der Veer P. 2001. Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

Univ. PressVan Der Veer P, Lehmann H, eds. 1999. Nation and Religion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. PressWeber M. 1946 [1918]. Science as a vocation. In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, transl./ed. HH Gerth,

C Wright Mills, pp. 129–56. New York: Oxford Univ. PressWeber M. 1963. The Sociology of Religion, transl. E Fischer. London: BeaconWeber M. 1976 [1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. London: Allen UnwinWilson B. 1966. Religion in Secular Society. London: Watts

100 Cannell

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29

Annual Review ofAnthropology

Volume 39, 2010Contents

Prefatory Chapter

A Life of Research in Biological AnthropologyGeoffrey A. Harrison � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 1

Archaeology

Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological PerspectivesGary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

Exhibiting Archaeology: Archaeology and MuseumsAlex W. Barker � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 293

Defining Behavioral Modernity in the Context of Neandertal andAnatomically Modern Human PopulationsApril Nowell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 437

The Southwest School of Landscape ArchaeologySeverin Fowles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 453

Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppes and MongoliaBryan Hanks � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 469

Biological Anthropology

Miocene Hominids and the Origins of the African Apes and HumansDavid R. Begun � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �67

Consanguineous Marriage and Human EvolutionA.H. Bittles and M.L. Black � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 193

Cooperative Breeding and its Significance to the Demographic Successof HumansKaren L. Kramer � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 417

Linguistics and Communicative Practices

Enactments of ExpertiseE. Summerson Carr � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �17

vii

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29

The Semiotics of BrandPaul Manning � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �33

The Commodification of LanguageMonica Heller � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 101

Sensory ImpairmentElizabeth Keating and R. Neill Hadder � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 115

The Audacity of Affect: Gender, Race, and History in LinguisticAccounts of Legitimacy and BelongingBonnie McElhinny � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 309

Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded AnthropologyDavid W. Samuels, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and Thomas Porcello � � � � � � � � � � 329

Ethnographic Approaches to Digital MediaE. Gabriella Coleman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 487

International Anthropology and Regional Studies

Peopling of the Pacific: A Holistic Anthropological PerspectivePatrick V. Kirch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 131

Anthropologies of the United StatesJessica R. Cattelino � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 275

Sociocultural Anthropology

The Reorganization of the Sensory WorldThomas Porcello, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and David W. Samuels � � � � � � � � � � � �51

The Anthropology of SecularismFenella Cannell � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �85

Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and PublicHealthJames Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 149

Food and the SensesDavid E. Sutton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

The Anthropology of Credit and DebtGustav Peebles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 225

Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of AutismOlga Solomon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241

Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the PostconflictMomentMary H. Moran � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 261

viii Contents

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29

Property and Persons: New Forms and Contestsin the Era of NeoliberalismEric Hirsch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 347

Education, Religion, and Anthropology in AfricaAmy Stambach � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 361

The Anthropology of Genetically Modified CropsGlenn Davis Stone � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 381

Water Sustainability: Anthropological Approaches and ProspectsBen Orlove and Steven C. Caton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 401

Theme I: Modalities of Capitalism

The Semiotics of BrandPaul Manning � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �33

The Commodification of LanguageMonica Heller � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 101

Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustmentand Public HealthJames Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 149

Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological PerspectivesGary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 167

The Anthropology of Credit and DebtGustav Peebles � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 225

Property and Persons: New Forms and Contests inthe Era of NeoliberalismEric Hirsch � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 347

The Anthropology of Genetically Modified CropsGlenn Davis Stone � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 381

Theme II: The Anthropology of the Senses

The Reorganization of the Sensory WorldThomas Porcello, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa and David W. Samuels � � � � � � � � � � � �51

Sensory ImpairmentElizabeth Keating and R. Neill Hadder � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 115

Food and the SensesDavid E. Sutton � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 209

Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of AutismOlga Solomon � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 241

Contents ix

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29

Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded AnthropologyDavid W. Samuels, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and Thomas Porcello � � � � � � � � � � 329

Indexes

Cumulative Index of Contributing Authors, Volumes 30–39 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 507

Cumulative Index of Chapter Titles, Volume 30–39 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 510

Errata

An online log of corrections to Annual Review of Anthropology articles may be found athttp://anthro.annualreviews.org/errata.shtml

x Contents

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.

AnnuAl Reviewsit’s about time. Your time. it’s time well spent.

AnnuAl Reviews | Connect with Our expertsTel: 800.523.8635 (us/can) | Tel: 650.493.4400 | Fax: 650.424.0910 | Email: service@annualreviews.org

New From Annual Reviews:

Annual Review of Statistics and Its ApplicationVolume 1 • Online January 2014 • http://statistics.annualreviews.org

Editor: Stephen E. Fienberg, Carnegie Mellon UniversityAssociate Editors: Nancy Reid, University of Toronto

Stephen M. Stigler, University of ChicagoThe Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application aims to inform statisticians and quantitative methodologists, as well as all scientists and users of statistics about major methodological advances and the computational tools that allow for their implementation. It will include developments in the field of statistics, including theoretical statistical underpinnings of new methodology, as well as developments in specific application domains such as biostatistics and bioinformatics, economics, machine learning, psychology, sociology, and aspects of the physical sciences.

Complimentary online access to the first volume will be available until January 2015. table of contents:•What Is Statistics? Stephen E. Fienberg•A Systematic Statistical Approach to Evaluating Evidence

from Observational Studies, David Madigan, Paul E. Stang, Jesse A. Berlin, Martijn Schuemie, J. Marc Overhage, Marc A. Suchard, Bill Dumouchel, Abraham G. Hartzema, Patrick B. Ryan

•The Role of Statistics in the Discovery of a Higgs Boson, David A. van Dyk

•Brain Imaging Analysis, F. DuBois Bowman•Statistics and Climate, Peter Guttorp•Climate Simulators and Climate Projections,

Jonathan Rougier, Michael Goldstein•Probabilistic Forecasting, Tilmann Gneiting,

Matthias Katzfuss•Bayesian Computational Tools, Christian P. Robert•Bayesian Computation Via Markov Chain Monte Carlo,

Radu V. Craiu, Jeffrey S. Rosenthal•Build, Compute, Critique, Repeat: Data Analysis with Latent

Variable Models, David M. Blei•Structured Regularizers for High-Dimensional Problems:

Statistical and Computational Issues, Martin J. Wainwright

•High-Dimensional Statistics with a View Toward Applications in Biology, Peter Bühlmann, Markus Kalisch, Lukas Meier

•Next-Generation Statistical Genetics: Modeling, Penalization, and Optimization in High-Dimensional Data, Kenneth Lange, Jeanette C. Papp, Janet S. Sinsheimer, Eric M. Sobel

•Breaking Bad: Two Decades of Life-Course Data Analysis in Criminology, Developmental Psychology, and Beyond, Elena A. Erosheva, Ross L. Matsueda, Donatello Telesca

•Event History Analysis, Niels Keiding•StatisticalEvaluationofForensicDNAProfileEvidence,

Christopher D. Steele, David J. Balding•Using League Table Rankings in Public Policy Formation:

Statistical Issues, Harvey Goldstein•Statistical Ecology, Ruth King•Estimating the Number of Species in Microbial Diversity

Studies, John Bunge, Amy Willis, Fiona Walsh•Dynamic Treatment Regimes, Bibhas Chakraborty,

Susan A. Murphy•Statistics and Related Topics in Single-Molecule Biophysics,

Hong Qian, S.C. Kou•Statistics and Quantitative Risk Management for Banking

and Insurance, Paul Embrechts, Marius Hofert

Access this and all other Annual Reviews journals via your institution at www.annualreviews.org.

Ann

u. R

ev. A

nthr

opol

. 201

0.39

:85-

100.

Dow

nloa

ded

from

ww

w.a

nnua

lrev

iew

s.or

gby

Uni

vers

idad

e do

Est

ado

do R

io d

e Ja

neir

o on

08/

12/1

4. F

or p

erso

nal u

se o

nly.