For this assignment you will read an ethnography about religion and write a 3-4 page analysis paper about it. This paper will allow you to examine course themes as you see them in a real ethnography. It will be a scaffolded essay allowing you to practice college-level writing. Your paper must be structured as follows:
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Introduce the ethnography you chose (what it’s about), the author, and the 3-4 themes you will explore in your essay. Remember that your audience is an intelligent person who hasn’t read this book or taken this class, so you can’t assume your reader knows any of this unless you explain it.
You may use the “I” voice in this essay. It is wholly appropriate to introduce your opinions, the structure of the paper, and your themes (ie. “The four course themes I saw in this book are…” = OK). However, do not use the “I” to tell me about your process (ie. “When I first started thinking about what I wanted to write my paper on, I thought about blah, blah, blah…” = not OK. You will loose points).
Paragraphs 2-4/5: Body
In each of the body paragraphs, examine a different theme from this class as it plays out in your ethnography. Themes you can choose include:
studying religion anthropologically (fieldwork/relativism/holism)
the nature of religion (beliefs vs. practices/identity)
mediation (things/bodies/words)
the nature of the religious world (religious landscapes/non-human actors/religious communities)
the types of authority in the book (religious leaders/ritual/the state/science, or
globalizing forces (interaction with a major 5 religion/diaspora/syncretism).
Start your paragraph with a topic sentence that tells the reader which theme you will be discussing in this paragraph. (ie- “The first theme I’m going to examine is x….”).
For every theme you say is in the book, you must list 2-3 pieces of evidence from the text. Most of this evidence should be you paraphrasing the text (still needs citation, including page #). Your paper should have only a few direct quotes, and these quotes should be no longer than 3 lines (aka- no block quotes). The reader wants to hear what you have to say. (If readers want to read the words of the ethnographer, they would read the ethnography!) Part of a good paper is choosing appropriate evidence.
For every piece of evidence you have from the text supporting your theme, have at least one sentence telling the reader how the evidence you picked demonstrates that theme. This is you connecting the dots for the reader (ie- “this is an example of mediation”). This is your commentary.
Final Paragraph
Close with a conclusion. The conclusion is a good place to summarize your main ideas and to discuss questions you had that weren’t addressed in the book, or that the book raised for you. It is also a place where you could give your opinion of the book or the author. There are many ways to conclude and essay, but you have to have some kind of conclusion.
The following ethnography is:
Farrer, Claire. 2010. Thunder Rides a Black Horse: Mescalero Apaches and the Mythic Present. Waveland Press.
