The Telengits of Southern Siberia: Landscape, Religion and Knowledge in Motion
About this ebook
Paradoxically, as the demand for national recognition grows among such people, and with it the need for more formal state structures, built around the nation, religion too begins to become formalized, and loses its natural, all-pervasive character. With the Telengits, whose natural religion includes elements of Buddhism, this takes the form of a debate as to whether the state religion of their polity is to be Buddhism or, contrary to the character of shamanism, a formal, structured, fixed shamanism. This is a comprehensive anthropological account of the contemporary religious life of the Telengits, holding important implications for wider debates in sociology and politics.
About the author
Agnieszka E. Halemba has conducted anthropological research in southern Siberia since 1993. She received her first degree from the University of Warsaw, Poland. In 2002 she received her PhD in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge, UK. She is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Germany, and a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, Poland.
