Stefanie Knauss considers the importance of toys in shaping childrens' embodied conceptions of cultural practices, particularly the significance of religious toys in conveying some of the important characters, ideas, and values of a tradition. She argues that the materiality of toys fosters particular enactments of religious stories but that such exercises are underdetermined; the toys must be a focus of pedagogy for them to take on the particular meanings of a tradition, otherwise, they may simply exist as secular playthings. In short, religious toys present opportunities for teaching about a particular tradition, but are not clearly indicative of such approaches in and of themselves. Knauss sees religious toys as a promising unit of analysis for investigating meaning-making and the interplay of self-determination and group influence in early identity formation.
Alexandra Antohin uses the material analogy of the Ethiopian tabot to explore
alternative dispositions to waiting and indeterminacy. She explores how ‘moving
foundations’ of the home and church facilitate conditions of sustaining
instability. This thought-provoking discussion considers how dilemmas of
displacement and the manipulation of time during crises, such as urban
resettlement, can revise sociocultural assumptions about the march of time as
moving fast and forward.
Eugenia Roussou discusses the prominence of evil eye beliefs and practices in contemporary Greece. Traditionally Greek ideas about the evil eye are increasingly being fused with New Age conceptions resulting in new ideas, practices, and religious materialities.
Thomas Hart presents an excerpt from The Ancient Spirituality of the Modern Maya regarding the role of stones in Maya spirituality. Below he introduces the excerpt, contextualizing these practices within traditional forms of spirituality in the western highlands of Guatemala. In his book, Hart draws from interviews with ritual specialists and other practitioners he has conducted since 1993.
