Beyond the Church and the Poor: Expanding the Subject of Ethnographic Theology

Abstract The use of ethnography for theological inquiry is no longer novel. Yet, as the introduction to this special issue indicates, the ethnographic turn in Christian theology is animated by distinct postliberal and liberationist trajectories, each with their own theological presumptions and methodological aims. Should the future development of this turn favour one trajectory over another? This paper explores this question in conversation with Todd Whitmore’s Imitating Christ in Magwi: An Anthropological Theology. Through a sustained engagement with Imitating Christ in Magwi, I unearth both postliberal and liberationist inheritances to show that Whitmore’s text exceeds a postliberal-liberationist binary. I then ask what the dual inheritance of his work signifies for the future of the ethnographic turn. Drawing from cultural anthropology’s mode of ‘studying up,’ I suggest that the turn should orient itself more broadly to the care of our common life by expanding attention to subjects with power.