TY - JOUR

T1 - The Social Life of Prayers – Introduction

AU - Bandak, Andreas

PY - 2016/12/5

Y1 - 2016/12/5

N2 - In this introduction the theme of prayer is brought into ananthropological discussion. Attending to prayers and how they areperformed and seen to intervene in a social world is a significantway to engage with matters close to people. As argued in thisintroduction, prayers are a way to map affect and affectiverelationships people hold in what they are oriented towards andcare about. Here a social perspective on prayer taking its cue fromMarcel Mauss is particularly relevant as it invites us to go beyondthe individual and see how prayers always point to a broaderlandscape. The reason for honing in on the social life of prayers isthat it entices a particular form of situated comparison of diverseforms of Christianity that thereby pushes the anthropology ofChristianity to consider central questions of agency, responsibilityand subjectivity. This introduction argues that attending to thesocial life of prayers can be seen as a way of mapping affect.Prayers in different ways attest to the implicatedness of humanbeings in a social world. Furthermore, prayer works as a didactictool and is in itself an internal scale of comparison and evaluationin various Christian formulations.

AB - In this introduction the theme of prayer is brought into ananthropological discussion. Attending to prayers and how they areperformed and seen to intervene in a social world is a significantway to engage with matters close to people. As argued in thisintroduction, prayers are a way to map affect and affectiverelationships people hold in what they are oriented towards andcare about. Here a social perspective on prayer taking its cue fromMarcel Mauss is particularly relevant as it invites us to go beyondthe individual and see how prayers always point to a broaderlandscape. The reason for honing in on the social life of prayers isthat it entices a particular form of situated comparison of diverseforms of Christianity that thereby pushes the anthropology ofChristianity to consider central questions of agency, responsibilityand subjectivity. This introduction argues that attending to thesocial life of prayers can be seen as a way of mapping affect.Prayers in different ways attest to the implicatedness of humanbeings in a social world. Furthermore, prayer works as a didactictool and is in itself an internal scale of comparison and evaluationin various Christian formulations.

U2 - 10.1080/0048721X.2016.1225904

DO - 10.1080/0048721X.2016.1225904

M3 - Journal article

VL - 47

SP - 1

EP - 18

JO - Religion

JF - Religion

SN - 0048-721X

IS - 1

ER -