Doctoral Dissertation Research: Religious Conflict and the Use of Space: Testing Theory in Ethiopia

加州大学圣地亚哥分校博士生约翰·C·杜林将在乔尔·罗宾斯博士的指导下，就宗教冲突与地理空间利用之间的关系进行社会科学研究。虽然宗教冲突和领土竞争经常同时发生，但这项研究将第一次侧重于与空间使用变化有关的冲突的特殊轨迹。这项研究将在埃塞俄比亚西北部的贡达尔镇进行，贡达尔镇是埃塞俄比亚东正教的传统中心，也是最近爆发宗教暴力的地点。刚铎宗教领域包含了多种宗教，这使研究人员能够研究每种宗教与空间的不同方式，以及这如何塑造了宗教冲突的过程。特别是，他将检验这一假设，即空间实践的差异而不是宗派差异可以解释一些宗教团体之间更高的暴力冲突发生率。研究人员将在刚铎进行为期24个月的田野调查，收集数据时使用的社会科学方法包括：定性访谈、档案研究，以及使用全球定位系统(GPS)绘制宗教空间和宗教冲突地图。这个项目很重要，因为它将进一步发展关于宗教冲突的人类学理论，该理论承认，许多冲突的中心是宗教对空间的使用，但没有阐明宗教冲突实例的特定轨迹与对手宗教使用空间的具体形式之间的关系。在更实际的层面上，通过了解与空间有关的冲突的根本原因，这项研究的结论可能会为减少冲突的做法和政策提供参考。资助这项研究还支持研究生的教育。

University of California San Diego doctoral student John C. Dulin, under the direction of Dr. Joel Robbins, will conduct social scientific research on the relationship between religious conflict and the use of geographic space. While both religious conflict and territorial competition frequently co-occur, this research will be the first to focus on the particular trajectory of conflict in relation to variability in the use of space. The research will be conducted in the town of Gondar, in northwest Ethiopia, a traditional center of Ethiopian Orthodoxy and the site recent outbreaks of religious violence. The Gondor religious field contains a multiplicity of religions, which allows the researcher to examine the distinct ways each relates to space and how that has shaped the course of religious conflict. In particular, he will test the hypothesis that differences in spatial practices rather than sectarian differences explain the greater rates of violent conflict between some religious groups and not others.The researcher will conduct 24 months of fieldwork in Gondor, collecting data with a mixture of social scientific methods including: qualitative interviewing, archival research, and the mapping of religious space and religious conflicts using Global Positioning Systems (GPS). This project is important because it will further develop anthropological theories of religious conflict, which acknowledge that many conflicts center on the religious use of space, but do not articulate the relationship between the particular trajectory of an instance of religious conflict and the specific form of the antagonists' religious use of space. On a more practical level, by getting at the underlying reasons for space-related conflict, findings from this research might inform practices and policy for reducing conflict. Funding this research also supports the education of a graduate student.