Building Bridges, Dissolving Boundaries: Toward a Methodology for the Ethnographic Study of the Afterlife, Mediumship, and Spiritual Beings

Abstract

The study of death, the afterlife, and related phenomena has long been of interest to anthropologists and religious studies scholars. Although such matters are of central human and cultural concern, Western academic approaches often rely on the juxtaposition between “our” rational and “their” irrational belief systems, and attempt to “explain away” or ignore emic interpretations with a subsequent loss of semantic density. A methodology for studying the afterlife and related phenomena based on cognitive, empathetic engagement involves adopting an emic interpretive lens in order to arrive at a “thick description” that does not shy away from aspects of experience outside the ethnographer's Weltanschauung. A discussion of the implications of adopting a dialogical, participative, open-minded approach to these aspects of human belief and practice are discussed in the context of case studies of spirit possession and reincarnation.

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