animism
Let an agent describe animism as a scholarly category and as a family of traditions with attribution to the communities and to anthropology, explain its history as a concept and its modern reinterpretation, avoid treating it as primitive or as one religion, and route questions about specific traditions to their own entries.
Bundle → Layer → Finding → Questions Filled
4 bundles · 8 layers · 8 findings · 16 questions
Concept What animism means.
Definition
Definition and history of the term.
Definition
Definition.
- What does animism mean, and how did anthropologists coin and revise the term, with attribution? definition
- Is the question about the category or about a specific tradition with its own name? boundary
Critique
Debates about the term.
Critique
Critique.
- What criticisms and reinterpretations of the term exist, with positions attributed? provenance
- Is the presentation free of evolutionist framing? boundary
Traditions Traditions grouped under it.
Examples
Traditions.
Examples
Examples.
- Which traditions are described as animist, and how do they describe themselves? provenance
- Which entry fits the specific tradition? action
Practice
Practices and places.
Practice
Practice.
- What practices and sacred places are associated, described with attribution? provenance
- Is the presentation respectful? boundary
Data Demography and rights.
Census
Census figures.
Census
Census.
- How do censuses and surveys count animist or traditional religion adherents, with sources? measurement
- Which sources are cited? provenance
Rights
Rights.
Rights
Rights.
- What rights protect practitioners and sacred sites? provenance
- Which entry fits Indigenous rights? action
Study Scholarship and guidance.
Scholarship
Scholarship.
Scholarship
Scholarship.
- How do anthropology and religious studies study animism today, and which references are standard? provenance
- Which entry fits the anthropology of religion? action
Guidance
Guidance.
Guidance
Guidance.
- Is the user seeking religious guidance, which the community provides? boundary
- Which entry fits a specific community? action
Classifiers Filled
- Family
- Thing Registry
- Category
- Society, people and institutions
- Entry kind
- thing
- Plane
- SOC
- Domain
- SOC.ORG
- Other names and narrower kinds
- animism in South Sudan, animism in the Central African Republic, animism in Malaysia, Hawaiian religion
What it is Filled
The belief that natural entities such as animals, plants, places and objects possess spirit, life or personhood, and the religious practices built on that belief; the term had an earlier use by Georg Ernst Stahl for a theory of life and the soul before its nineteenth-century anthropological adoption to describe many Indigenous and traditional religions, and is used today in scholarship for a range of relational worldviews and by some communities as a self-description, though many traditions prefer their own names.
Why it exists Filled
Let an agent describe animism as a scholarly category and as a family of traditions with attribution to the communities and to anthropology, explain its history as a concept and its modern reinterpretation, avoid treating it as primitive or as one religion, and route questions about specific traditions to their own entries.
Distinguishing features Filled
- Relational view of nature and persons
- Scholarly category rather than a single religion
- Present in many Indigenous and traditional religions
- Reinterpreted in recent scholarship
What robots and AI may and may not do Filled
Must not
- Treat animism as primitive or as one religion.
- Impose the term on communities that reject it.
- Share restricted or sacred knowledge without the community's consent.
- Encourage visits to sacred sites in breach of protections.
Only with a human decision
- Publishing content about named communities' beliefs or sacred sites.
May
- Explain animism as a term in scholarship and its range of meanings.
- Describe particular traditions with attribution to the communities that hold them.
- Note where communities reject the term.
Moral aspects Filled
- The term was used to rank peoples as primitive.
- Sacred sites and knowledge deserve protection.
Who is affected
- Indigenous and traditional communities
- Practitioners
- Students and learners
Owners Filled
Steward
Nobody owns the concept; communities hold their own traditions.
Links to other meta-models Filled
parent
- Q2611042 - registry parent class
- Q9306122 - registry parent class
related
- traditional religion - in registry terms
- belief system - a worldview
- anthropology of religion - the discipline that coined the term
- monotheism - in classifications of religion
What else AI and robots need to interact with it Filled
Identity and identifiers required Filled
- Vercy registry: vr.tr.animism
- Wikidata: Q43004 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q43004)
Direct properties not applicable Not applicable
Not applicable
Plane SOC: no invented physical properties.
Recognition optional Filled
- Attribution of spirit or personhood to natural entities
- Category from anthropology applied to many traditions
- Specific traditions such as Shinto or Hawaiian religion have their own entries and names
- Not a visible object; seen in practices, places and stories of many traditions.
Capabilities and actions required Filled
- explain the concept and its history
- describe traditions grouped under it with attribution
- present scholarly debates about the term
- route to specific traditions
Hazards and failure modes required Filled
- Treating animism as primitive or as one religion
- Imposing the term on communities that reject it
- Ignoring sacred site protections
Standards and interfaces required Filled
- Freedom of religion protections
- Census classifications that use the category
- Indigenous rights frameworks on sacred sites
Context of use required Filled
- Not applicable; a category of belief and practice.
- traditional religions of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania described as animist
- animist elements within major religions
- new animism in scholarship
- self-described animism in contemporary movements
- animism as recorded in national censuses
Sources Filled
- Wikidata item Q43004: animism - identity and sense of the item
- Wikipedia: Animism - general description of the item
Open questions
- Should specific traditions be linked rather than grouped?
- How should census categories be represented?
- The registry entry has merged aliases for country-level and specific traditions; should they be split off?
Machine files
Provenance
thing registry research (pass 2) · unreviewed
Built from: models/things/publications/thing-q43004/spec.json