Comparer les traditions discursives

Abstract

Some anthropologists criticize the Eurocentric and colonial dimension of the concepts of religion, symbol and belief. A comparative analysis of religions as systems of belief, it is argued, defines a concept inherited from a Western Christian tradition as a universal constant. What, then, are the comparative concepts that can be substituted for the concepts of religion and belief? The article answers this question by analysing the concept of discursive tradition put forward by Talal Asad to analyse Islam as an object of anthropology. He proposes a critical and philosophical re-reading of this anthropology by emphasizing the discursive dimension, that of meaning and rationality, and of traditional embodiments.

Keywords

• Talal Asad
• anthropology of Islam
• discursive tradition
• Islam
• Ernest Gellner
• Clifford Geertz