This chapter explores the making of a humanist ceremony, and discusses why self‐identified humanists and secularists, who often define themselves within the tradition of ‘free thought’, want to foster ceremonies, given that ceremonies so often connote the routine, discipline, and authority associated with religion. It focuses on funerals provided by celebrants in the British Humanist Association (BHA), the most important non‐religious organization in the United Kingdom, and one of the world leaders in the development of such ceremonies. A ‘non‐religious’ funeral, (...) then, is one in which a conscious decision has been made to ground the event and its importance within ‘the immanent frame’. Anthropologists often observe that ritual speech and action carry particular meaning and force. Ritual frames a social world, and it communicates and validates a particular way of looking at the world. (shrink)

Almost none of the critical theory concerned with the secular addresses it in relation to sub-Saharan Africa. This is notable not least given the extent to which other post-colonial regions, such as North Africa and South Asia, are central to such discussions. It is not, however, that the critical theorists are ignoring Africanists' work; indeed, looking at the Africanist literature in any depth makes it clear that there is not, and has never been, a field of “secular studies.” Taking this (...) observation as a point of departure, and considering it in relation to a range of classic and contemporary ethnographic cases, this paper aims to shed light on some of the key terms in current debates about the secular—terms such as immanence, the mundane, critique, and doubt. In doing so, it calls for further considerations of how to figure the Africanist canon in relation to the terms of critical theory. (shrink)

Meaning, Anthropology, Christianity Matt Tomlinson & Matthew Engelke The Uses of Meaning As Stanley Tambiah once said, "the various ways 'meaning' is ...