Symbols
Types of symbols
• Visual
Spatial
Kinesthetic
Also…
• Verbal (spells/prayers – words have meaning in excess of their literal meaning)
• Aural (music, drumming)• Other – smell/touch….
Metaphor
• Metaphor as building block– Linking two distinct domains of experience
together– Component we want to know more about
is illuminated by identification with what is known, e.g.• If heaven IS (like) a garden or palace• If god IS (like) a king• Then other imagery to describe heaven or god
will be taken from similar domain
Power of symbols
• Symbols = conventional – there must cultural consensus to
understand them– Sometimes arbitrary but seem
“natural” to those familiar with them
– Anthropology of religion is very much about learning the meaning of symbols
What do we mean when we use symbols?
– Symbols are gateways to understanding–Provide perspectives by offering new
way to perceive phenomena–Mystical perspective = symbols become
real– E.g. Eucharist in Catholicism
Symbolic actions, or real?–Central ritual of
Christianity• Is what’s going on --
miracle/magic/symbolic?
–Bread=body/wine/juice=blood• A “cognate” of Jewish bread and
wine sharing after services• Transubstantiation vs. primarily
symbolic/memorializing
Symbols and action• What do symbols mean to people as they
make sense of experience?• Symbols concentrate (summarize) lots of
connections together into a singularly powerful form (the flag, the cross, the idol)
• Geertz on how symbols direct and synthesize thinking to help people make sense of life
Motivating symbols• Victor Turner argued that
symbols have cognitive and emotional elements (what they make people think and what they make people feel)– Motivate people to action– Are both cognitive and
emotive – Allow people to think about
the world and also act upon it
Belief and coercion?
• Do people all think the same way about symbols or act in the same way concerning them?
• Symbols as “collective representations”– Durkheim– Compliance and defiance