Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
'Origins' and 'Boundaries' in Teaching Religions of South Asian Origin
Author: Amy Russell
Journal Title: Discourse
ISSN: 2040-3674
ISSN-L: 1741-4164
Volume: 10
Number: 2
Start page: 9
End page: 13
Return to vol. 10 no. 2 index page
The five papers that follow in this section of Discourse are all the products of a conference organised by the Subject Centre for PRS held on the 13th January 2011.1 The conference was titled 'Teaching Religions of South Asian Origin' in a deliberate twofold attempt; first, to capture a distinct group of discipline experts in HE; and second, to provoke a discussion about the usefulness of terms like 'origins' and the current curriculum preferences for teaching distinct modules based on one religion, or in contrast, teaching courses on 'world religions' or 'religions of South Asia'—each, featuring a week or two on each religion. This mode of teaching creates boundaries in students' perceptions of where each religion begins and ends. This conference was designed to question the usefulness of those boundaries and what we can do in our teaching practice to destabilize them.
These issues of 'academic 'colonialism' and 'pedagogical orientalism' (see Takhar and Jacobs, this edition) are raised in each paper, making us, as academics, question the ways in which we represent these traditions not only in our teaching but also in our curriculum design. Do we perpetuate false distinctions between religions? Do we allow students to gain easy answers so that as assessment approaches they feel comfortable that they have 'got' what Buddhism (for example) is and is not? Do we utilize confusion and discomfort as learning tools, knowing they produce a greater depth of knowledge, even if they may turn out not to have been well received when our feedback sheets are returned? These are questions each paper in turn engages with and makes suggestions toward. However, ultimately it is up to those of us who teach in religion to create an environment where concepts can be challenged and confusion can be used to bring further understanding.
The papers in this volume report multiple responses to these issues. Cush and Robinson's article, based on their keynote for the event, argues fieldwork can compel students to trouble the idea of 'British religions' and question whether the concept of 'diaspora religions' is useful and/or detrimental to understanding the place of religions in British society, especially those religions that are not perceived as having 'British' origins. The mere mention of origins in this context will immediately provoke unease in the reader, thus demonstrating how very important it is to question such concepts that imply a historically and territorially based understanding of religion—clearly this is a way of thinking that must be destabilised in order that students may understand lived religion.
Takhar and Jacobs suggest that confusion can be an excellent learning tool. While students may feel baffled or uneasy about not being able to place a tradition or locate an experience within a tradition this unease creates a vital kind of knowledge that stays with them far longer than information that is classified quickly and immediately put to the back of their minds. To do this, they argue, field trips should be challenging. Rather than teaching them what to expect at a place of worship and then taking them there to confirm their expectations, they equip students to recognise symbols and practices from different religions and then take them to spaces that amalgamate these symbols and defy easy classification. Rather than a critique of Cush and Robinson's use of fieldwork Takhar and Jacobs demonstrate how fieldwork can be used for multiple purposes and achieve multiple objectives. By physically displacing them from the learning environment they are also conceptually displaced as they encounter religious practices that defy simple classification. Sometimes we cannot predict what students will take away from these experiences but the evidence provided by Takhar and Jacobs suggests that students' reactions to physically being in these places provoke an embodied pedagogy that begins a process of boundary deconstruction through experience.
Webster's comment piece also engages with confusion and sees it as a fruitful place that he must lead students to because of the comfortable preconceptions they hold. Rather than teaching through confusion, he seeks to teach away from certainty and presumption. He explores the way Buddhism is taught and provides a challenging critique of its lack of problematization in contrast to Hinduism. He argues that students bring to Buddhism lectures and seminars a variety of cultural references that often shape their perceptions of Buddhism and remain unchallenged throughout their learning. He suggest this is often particular to Buddhism as it is seen as a 'non-threatening' religion, and that this disguises an inherent misconception of Buddhism's nature and the orientalist tendencies that go unrecognised. Certainly in our teaching we may often challenge the orientalist assumptions that certain religions are traditional, static or cruel; we are often less likely to devote time to correct assumptions of benevolence, or happiness/positivity.
Salter's paper illustrates a point that was raised very recently by Shaunaka Rishi Das, who argued that Hinduism should not be taught in isolation to philosophy as this is an artificial, European academic division of disciplines.2 Once again this returns us to the suggestion that the disciplinary boundaries in place in our teaching are forms of 'academic orientalism.' To respond to this issue Salter suggests teaching about Vedic society can be done through Purusa Sukta, one of the later hymns of the Rig Veda. She argues that introducing Purusa Sukta through discussion of creation 'myths' and theories of ritual can be a way to engage students with method and theory and also to lead them from an unfamiliar text to an understanding of more familiar concepts. This stops them forming an opinion that could be seen as 'Hindus think this' and instead leads them to think of Purusa Sukta in more nuanced and complex terms, as a text that can widen their understanding of religion and philosophy.
Beckerlegge adds a further dimension to this debate. He explains the specific demands of teaching at the Open University in the current economic climate. How does one lead students through confusion if you are not in regular contact with them? How can fieldwork be possible with a cohort of over 500? He gives a practical overview of how these issues and challenges are borne out in different institutions with very different demands on teaching. Both Salter and Beckerlegge approach the issue of methodology and how to incorporate this into teaching rather than locating it in distinct methods modules. They argue this incorporation gives students the tools to approach other religions, helping them think across religions. Sixty credit OU modules allow the boundaries between religions to be blurred as these larger modules include teaching on several different religions. Bespoke films and other visual resources take students on 'virtual field trips' to places of worship yet they also enable comparisons to be drawn quickly between traditions they are associated with (through ideas of 'origins') in comparison with how they are practiced in other locations.
From this summary it is clear that dividing religions by their 'origins' is simultaneously useful and inherently problematic. Although we can use the concept of origins to group religions only to go on to blur the boundaries between them, rather than teaching them as discrete traditions; the idea of 'origins' still presents a linear and territorial conception of the development of some religions that reinforces assumptions about them. To explore 'origins' when looking at south Asia is often to neglect Islam, yet it is totally unreasonable to portray the religions of south Asia without Islam. This is why the Special Interest Group that has been launched as a result of this event has called itself 'Teaching Across Religions of South Asia', to emphasise the blurring of boundaries.3
'Origins' as a starting point must be questioned, as Cush and Robinson argue, as they tie a religion to a territory, which is why the idea of diaspora religion must be interrogated. Once 'diaspora religions' as a concept is troubled we can help students move on to a place where they question their own conceptions about what a 'British religion' is. How we teach the boundaries of lived religion increases in complexity when origins are shown to be just one lens through which religion may be conceptualised. John Zavos and Jacqueline Suthren Hirst demonstrated their conception of 'Twisting the Wrist',4 a multiperspective approach to the study of religion at our event. Through this method each perspective is examined and layers of analysis are integrated into understanding—to the point that students may begin to realise that definitional boundaries are never neutral and that categories simultaneously exclude and include. What is seen as the 'real' religion or the 'truth' about a religion immediately excludes all other ways of thinking and experiencing that religion, often marginalising identities already on the periphery. Indeed, by troubling such categorizations we can endeavour to take the students we teach to a space where they may even begin to question if such boundaries are useful at all.
- Please see the Subject Centre's website for abstracts and presentations: http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/view.html/prsevents/477
- Plenary Panel on Religion, Empowerment and Education at Empowerment and the Sacred, 24th June 2011, University of Leeds.
- This group has been initially funded by the Subject Centre and is being organised and run by Opinderjit Kaur Takhar, University of Wolverhampton, David Webster, University of Gloucestershire and John Zavos and Jacqueline Suthren Hirst, University of Manchester. Please contact the Subject Centre or the organisers for more information.
- See their forthcoming book; Religious Traditions in Modern South Asia, (Routledge, 2011).
Return to vol. 10 no. 2 index page
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
