AGAMA, KEBUDAYAAN, DAN KEKUASAAN: CATATAN TEORITIK DARI SEORANG SALAFI
ABSTRACT: Theoretical shifts
in anthropological studies in recent decades has given way to renewed
recognition of looking at issues of identity, namely that the sociall life, the
arena in which the identity plays in, must be fundamentally understood as
negotiating meanings. This is where Clifford Geertz’s interpretative approach
becomes important yet problematic. Important because Geertz offers a humanistic
approach which examines how meanings and symbols become important in the view
of the community itself. Therefore, he argues, cultural interpretation requires
a more in-depth analysis, also more intelligent and complex in which its
purposes and those complexed cultural forms that can not simply be reduced to
the effects on the social engines and organisms as claimed by structuralist and
functionalist scholars before him. At the same time, it is also problematic
because of Geertz’s position that searches for meaning makes him seem
neglective or underestimative of the process of how interaction – the arena of
where meanings work – is produced. In this case, Geertz’s critics have “helped”
by reminding him of what is power relations and agency. Refering to the
conception of Sherry Ortner, the author argues that through the agency there is
a way to see this debate from the mid. The side which is not for eliminating
the significant influence of Geertz is also not to ignore the significance of
the critics’ arguments, but to bridge the two (meaning and power relations).
Efforts in connecting this theory through the concept of agency consequently
will include the significance of one party, at the same time improve its
insignificance through the criticism of others and vice versa.
Keyword: power relations,
meanings, culture, religion, identity, agency
Penulis: Muhammad Belanawane
Kode Jurnal: jpantropologidd110005
