Author Topic: Wiccan Shaman (Read 6413 times)

Sage · « **Reply #45 on:** March 24, 2014, 04:40:10 pm »

Quote from: Phouka;143487

Unfortunately, the word shaman is used at the university level now. Anthropologists use the term pretty much as this tribe's holy person(s). It has become commonly identified with any culture that does trance work, channeling (or outright possesion by a god) is shamanistic and the holy person is a shaman.

We, here in the Cauldron can limit the definition to the Siberian tribe but it's not going to fly generaly in anthropological circles.

Phouka

Well, it's still important to call out the problem and challenge the use of the term, within and without academic circles. Some professors are more open to criticism than others. I've had experiences where professors owned the fact "shamanism" is a problematic term, and other experiences where professors told me to stop worrying about it. Regardless of eventual outcome, it deserves overt criticism. And who knows? Things do change for the better, even in the ivory tower.

Nyktipolos · « **Reply #46 on:** March 24, 2014, 04:47:05 pm »

Quote from: Sage;143499

Well, it's still important to call out the problem and challenge the use of the term, within and without academic circles. Some professors are more open to criticism than others. I've had experiences where professors owned the fact "shamanism" is a problematic term, and other experiences where professors told me to stop worrying about it. Regardless of eventual outcome, it deserves overt criticism. And who knows? Things do change for the better, even in the ivory tower.

Didn't we already mention (I'm not entirely sure if it's in this thread, or this one, or another) that 'shaman' as a term for this sort of thing is actually falling out of dissuse because of it's appropriative qualities, and that it's preferred to, when studying specific cultures, use the term in the language(s) those cultures use? I want to say it might've been Catja who mentioned it, but I can't 100% remember. I'll have to see if I can dig it up when I have more spoons.

IMHO, I don't believe people who are outside of these cultures have the right to determine what the correct terminology is, regardless of their education. To me, that seems incredibly privileged and colonialist.

Sage · « **Reply #47 on:** March 24, 2014, 04:49:52 pm »

Quote from: Nyktipolos;143501

Didn't we already mention (I'm not entirely sure if it's in this thread, or this one, or another) that 'shaman' as a term for this sort of thing is actually falling out of dissuse because of it's appropriative qualities, and that it's preferred to, when studying specific cultures, use the term in the language(s) those cultures use? I want to say it might've been Catja who mentioned it, but I can't 100% remember. I'll have to see if I can dig it up when I have more spoons.

IMHO, I don't believe people who are outside of these cultures have the right to determine what the correct terminology is, regardless of their education. To me, that seems incredibly privileged and colonialist.

I remember the first time this came up in conversation. I was at a governor's school for humanities summer of 2007 and had JUST gotten into Pagan stuff, had Cunningham's Wicca newly in hand, and had read a really fascinating website about how "shaman" got misused ALL THE TIME in Pagan/New Age circles. So I take a class on Religion in Film and challenge the prof about the use of "shaman," giving a fairly good explanation for why it's problematic for a seventeen-year-old. And I was told that it didn't matter, the term was widespread and everyone knew what the word meant.

I had a lot of problems with that class.

Nyktipolos · « **Reply #48 on:** March 24, 2014, 05:04:30 pm »

Quote from: Sage;143502

I remember the first time this came up in conversation. I was at a governor's school for humanities summer of 2007 and had JUST gotten into Pagan stuff, had Cunningham's Wicca newly in hand, and had read a really fascinating website about how "shaman" got misused ALL THE TIME in Pagan/New Age circles. So I take a class on Religion in Film and challenge the prof about the use of "shaman," giving a fairly good explanation for why it's problematic for a seventeen-year-old. And I was told that it didn't matter, the term was widespread and everyone knew what the word meant.

I had a lot of problems with that class.

I can see why. And you know, I generally can guess what people mean when they call themselves 'shamans', or call things 'shamanistic' or 'core shamanism'. That doesn't make it any less problematic, and one of the things I learned very early on from reading Catja's posts is that academia is always growing and expanding, and it's always challenging itself (actually, I see this in the science threads as well!). If we stop challenging the fact that using 'shaman' as an adequate term (and it's not really; it's unwieldy and trying to take one term, divorcing it from it's culture, and putting it onto another, which makes a pretty big mess when you're then trying to understand the other culture), I think we're doing a disservice.

I kind of also think of important elders in my community who do ceremonies and ... I wouldn't ever call what they do 'shamanistic'. It has it's own terminology to properly use for who they are and what they are doing. If you're trying to understand what someone is doing, why wouldn't you try to open up and immerse yourself in that language, to try (key word) to understand?