Paper short abstract:

Drawing on the case of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this paper analyzes conceptual negotiations of "religion" and "politics" resp. "medicine" at the turn of the 20th century and discusses the demarcation and intermingling of epistemic domains as relational processes.

Paper long abstract:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the "Mormons")—today a global and highly successful Christian denomination—was created in Upstate New York in the 1830s and settled in the Salt Lake region of modern Utah in the mid-1840s. Mormon mode of life and organizational structures in the Far West can be regarded as a social experiment at the crossroad of Christian restorationism and American utopianism. Yet, at the latest with the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1869, the Church was confronted with increased contact with "outsiders." Interaction at the local and national level forced its members to rethink their collective mode of living in view of new categories and distinctions, leading in some cases to tensions within the Church itself. Focusing on the political and medical domains, this paper discusses conceptual negotiations of "religion" and "politics" resp. "medicine" at the turn of the 20th century when compulsory vaccination became an issue of government policy, and the Mormons were challenged to legitimize their participation in national politics. On the theoretical level, the paper discusses the demarcation and intermingling of epistemic domains as relational processes.