Being-in-Christ and Putting Death in Its Place: An Anthropologist's Account of Christian Performance in Spanish America and the American South

by Miles Richardson

Winner of the James Mooney Award of the Southern Anthropological Society

In this bracingly original anthropological study, Miles Richardson draws on forty years of empirical research to explore the paradox that while humans must die like all evolving life forms, they have adapted a unique symbolic communication that makes them aware of their natu­rally occurring fate; and through word and artifact, they dwell upon that discovery. Using the concepts of culture and place, he illuminates how two groups, Catholics in Spanish America and Baptists in the American South, create “being-in-Christ” and thereby “put death in its place.” The book combines biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic anthropology; a rigorous evolutionary framework; and a postmodern dialogic stance to view humanity as inescapably a product of nature without sacrificing the interpretative social constructions that “turn a primate into a poem.” Hard-won ethnographic detail and moving reli­gious insight make this an enthralling work.

414 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Emily]

Granted, I am biased because he was a huge influence on me as a student when I was working on my MA and was always I thought of as brilliant and an awesome professor, but I loved this book. Some of the ideas were familiar to me since I am a former student of his, but that didn't stop it from being very interesting to me. I also got a kick out of the writing style: He brings the reader into the text as co-creator of its meaning, and at times he is obviously anticipating the likely arguments that would occur to the reader and he addresses those arguments in the text. The result sometimes sounds as if he is writing to the voices in his head or something, but it totally works.