RST 2603 New Religious Movements - Assignment 4 (2019). Discussion on Suitable data gathering methods and explanatory studies for New Religous Movements.
SUITABLE DATA GATHERING METHODS AND EXPLANATORY STUDIES FOR NEW RELIGIOUS
MOVEMENTS
In this assignment, two questions are answered for each of three selected New Religious Movements:
a) Which of the four data gathering methods described by Wallis would be most suitable for the
gathering of data on that movement; and
b) What kind of explanatory study would be appropriate for the movement.
The four data gathering methods described by Wallis are hostile and non-hostile internal approaches,
and hostile and non-hostile external approaches. An internal approach would be where a
researcher joins a movement or lives with the members of a movement for a period of time and
is thereby able to gather information from inside the movement. Wallis contends that
sympathetic but objective understanding of a movement is required to describe the movement
accurately. Such a data gathering method, where the researcher befriends members of the
movement, would be non-hostile. Hostile information from inside a movement is mostly
gathered from ex-member of new religious movements. These people would have inside
information, but their interpretation and reporting of the information may be subjectively
negative, especially if they left the movement under negative circumstances. This would colour
the internal data as hostile.
External studies mean that researchers do not become personally involved, but obtain
information from secondary sources such as publications, questionnaires and interviews. The
information thus obtained may still be interpreted in either a non-hostile or hostile manner. An
example of non-hostile study would be where the researcher objectively reports on his study of
secondary sources on an NRM. A hostile study would be where a researcher only consults sources
that are already negative towards the NRM. The researcher would have decided beforehand that
a particular NRM is non-desirable and would seek out sources that would cast the NRM in a
negative light.
Once data has been gathered using one of the four methods described above, the data has to be
analysed, interpreted and explained. The four kinds of studies used in the explanation of NRM’s
are Historical, Comparative, Contextual and Hermeneutical.
The Historical description involves placing the chronological development of an NRM in the
context of wider “non-religious” historical events and circumstances that could have had an
impact on the formation and continuation of the NRM. Comparative studies compare specific
aspects of two or more movements. Contextual studies endeavour to place the development
of an NRM in the relevant historical, social or political context of the time. Hermeneutical
studies explain what a religion means to people and how they understand, experience and
interpret it.
SPIRITUALISM
a) Data gathering method
I would argue that non-hostile external data gathering would be most effective in the gathering
of data on Spiritualism. In Assignment 03 I argued that Spiritualism was no longer a “new” NRM,
because there could be no original first-generation left in a movement that started in the mid
1800’s. It would therefore follow that most of the relevant data cannot be obtained from
primary sources such as interviews with the founders. An objective study of the host of
published literature on the movement would yield the best results.
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