Contribution short abstract:

This presentation discusses the inadequacies of anthropological theory grounded in its Western theological entanglements. It elaborates on the methodology and pedagogy that is both emically and theologically (but not confessionally) oriented and aimed to decolonize anthropological epistemology

Contribution long abstract:

In this paper, I discuss the inadequacies of anthropological theory resulting from its crypto-theological (in practice Western-Christian) entanglements, which I came across during ethnographic research on healing practices in Orthodox monasteries in Bulgaria. I indicate that inspirations drawn from Orthodox Christian theology and Byzantine scholars' findings can broaden the scope of anthropological theory regarding the materiality and agency of objects, as they offer an epistemological approach situated beyond the “semiotics of representation”, and focus more on the "issue of presence", which is still less profoundly conceptualized in anthropological theory. Discussing those problems I will introduce the decolonial methodology, implemented in the courses I teach.