Stigmatised and Scientific Knowledge: Some Characteristics of Competition for Legitimacy between New Age and Academic Archaeology

Abstract

Andrei Tiukhtiaev – postgraduate student, European University at Saint Petersburg, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (the Kunstkamera), Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation. Email: atiukhtiaev@eu.spb.ru

This paper deals with the issue of contestation between followers of New Age religion and official academic institutions (primarily archaeological ones). Their contestation is related to the attempts of some activists to redefine categories and hierarchies created by state actors. What is examined is how the discourses of two groups interrelate, using the example of appealing to academic discourse by alternative religiosity. Specific features of such interrelation are determined by two factors. Firstly, New Age religion is characterised by opposition to the official authoritative institutions. Secondly, due to secularisation
and the loss of monopoly on the production of knowledge by religion, different religious groups appeal to science in order to legitimate their beliefs. This is the reason why this appeal to the archaeological data and elements of academic discourse turns out to be an important resource in creating the knowledge production industry. The appeal to science is based on the specific logic of 'stigmatised knowledge'. While New Age religion followers as representatives of alternative knowledge have to appeal to science, they do it in a way that allows them to challenge the status of academy. Furthemore, in doing this they also legitimate their own status. As a result, alternative experts perform an imagined discussion with representatives of academic institutions. In this discussion, the alternative experts win because they falsely ascribe ideas to scholars that they do not actually hold. Rejecting the legitimate status of academic science, alternative experts at the same time reject categories that are credited to them by official institutions. Thus, New Age followers seek to go beyond the category 'religion'.