{"id":34717,"date":"2016-01-23T10:03:27","date_gmt":"2016-01-23T15:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34717"},"modified":"2016-01-23T10:14:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-23T15:14:23","slug":"international-satellites-peripheries-global-in-search-of-a-name","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2016\/01\/international-satellites-peripheries-global-in-search-of-a-name\/","title":{"rendered":"International? Peripheries? Global? In search of a name"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"international\"<\/a>What is an adequate label for the areas outside of the so-called \u201cChurch\u2019s center\u201d? If it pertains to non-US countries, \u201cinternational\u201d is commonly used, but semantically it is flawed because the United States itself belongs to the circle of all nations. \u201cForeign\u201d and \u201calien\u201d sound non-inclusive for a church that emphasizes worldwide unity and belonging among its members. As a neutral geographical term, \u201cabroad\u201d fails if one wants to include in the discussion ethnic minorities within the United States. Those have become particularly noteworthy as the Church again allows Mormon wards with a foreign ethnic or lingual identity on American soil, such as Cambodian, Korean, or Russian.[1]<\/a> Within the United States, thousands of immigrant Mormons, or converted after immigration, represent various cultures, languages, and countries. For decades the Church has been struggling to find optimal ways to accommodate their needs. Recognized American racial and ethnic groups, such as American Indian and African American, form similar groups for specific study. Even the interaction with Native Americans is, ironically, part of a negotiated process with an \u201coutside\u201d group. The same can be said of Hawaiians.[2]<\/a> It shows the ambiguity and complexity of our boundaries.<\/p>\n

Also, the terms \u201cinternational\u201d (meant as outside the United States), \u201cforeign,\u201d \u201calien,\u201d and \u201cabroad\u201d proceed from Americentrism. This US-centered vantage point to look at \u201cothers\u201d is understandable since church headquarters and the \u201cMormon cultural region\u201d are in the American West. All Mormon activity in the rest of the world still emanates from its American center. This Mormon Americentrism led Dutch anthropologist van Beek to envision two Mormon spheres, US and non-US, as \u201ccolonizer\u201d versus \u201ccolonized\u201d and to draw parallels with colonial history in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. For van Beek, the Mormon base in the United States, commonly called \u201cSalt Lake,\u201d is the \u201cdomestic\u201d church, while the ecclesiastical areas in other countries are its \u201ccolonial\u201d outposts. As these areas mature in leadership and turn into stakes, the relation becomes one from metropolis to satellites, comparable to how colonies gained sovereignty, while still being controlled by the metropolis within the dependencia<\/em> model. Van Beek words this relation, in more neutral terms, also as one of \u201chomeland headquarters\u201d versus the \u201cinternational periphery.\u201d[3]<\/a> That last word, in the plural, is also used by Reid L. Neilson to mark out the distant areas apostle David O. McKay visited during his world tour in the 1920s.[4]<\/a> It is also used by Paul Reeve in his definition of \u201cPost New Mormon History,\u201d which includes the exploration of \u201cMormonism\u2019s emergence as a global phenomenon (…) at the ever-changing peripheries as well as at the center.\u201d[5]<\/a> The BYU Church History Symposium of March 2014 on \u201cMormonism as a Global Religion\u201d had as one its topics \u201cCenter and periphery relations.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeripheries\u201d may have some advantages. It bears no political connotation, while still expressing a tension between the two spheres. It includes anything that is not the center, thus also including divergent situations within the United States.[6]<\/a> The plural \u201cperipheries\u201d evokes the diversity of that zone\u2014hence also \u201ca periphery\u201d for a specific locale. It is possible to use the word with adjectival value, such as in \u201cchurch periphery research\u201d or \u201cperiphery topics.\u201d The adjective \u201cperipheral\u201d is also usable as it reflects the reality of an ambivalence: peripheral topics not only belong to the geographical periphery, but they are also, at present, still tangential and secondary in the totality of academic publications on Mormonism.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlobal\u201d is another word that has come into use to refer to a worldwide reality. The \u201cGlobal Mormonism Project\u201d at BYU promises \u201ceasy access to information on Mormonism in every region and country of the world, as well as topics of international scope.\u201d[7]<\/a> A lengthy Washington Post article entitled \u201cThe New Face of Global Mormonism\u201d described the spread of this \u201call-American\u201d faith to other countries.[8]<\/a> The term has also become common in academic contributions, referring to the international dimension.[9]<\/a> However, compared to \u201cperiphery,\u201d \u201c<\/em>global\u201d has an almost opposite connotation. The notion of globalization is not intended to discover and respect diversity but to stress cohesion and commonality, as in stating that English is becoming the global language of the world. Merriam-Webster defines globalism as \u201ca national policy of treating the whole world as a proper sphere for political influence,\u201d coming close to imperialism. In that sense \u201cglobal Mormonism\u201d can be understood as not referring to peripheral diversity, but as creating an integrated, similar \u201cgospel culture,\u201d driven by Church correlation\u2019s motto \u201creduce and simplify,\u201d to enforce an identical church all over the world. Warrick N. Kear describes the effect of these \u201creductions and simplifications\u201d on Mormon music since this strictly defined, uniform music must serve \u201cglobal Mormonism.\u201d[10]<\/a> The term \u201cglobal\u201d may evoke immensity, but it also may suggest an impoverishing mass crushing the colorful tapestry of nations and cultures. Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye hopes that such a globalization may be avoided by \u201cglocalization\u201d in international Mormon studies.[11]<\/a> This topic of the American identity of the global church will continue to inspire studies.[12]<\/a><\/p>\n

But does any difference ought to be made between center and periphery since the Church is indeed supposed to be the same all over the world, with the members participating in the same worldwide \u201cgospel culture\u201d? Even for the past, is it not sufficient to identify a specific person, group of people, or location as object of study, without the need for a broader term englobing spaced-out situations outside of the center? Perhaps such a hyperonym is needed if Mormon Studies of local peripheries is to extract from these confined areas more \u201cc\u2019s\u201d\u2014comparisons, connections, and common causes and consequences. In other words, research is to connect peripheries.<\/p>\n

At this stage all these considerations are, of course, theoretical, because the center is not really defined, except through differences with what is not the center.<\/p>\n

Any thoughts on this quandary?<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jessie L. Embry, \u201cEthnic Congregations,\u201d chapter 6 in Mormon Wards as Community<\/em> (Binghamton: Global Academic Publishing, 2001); also Embry, \u201cEthnic Groups and the LDS Church,\u201d Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 25, no. 4 (1992): 81\u201396; \u201cSpeaking for Themselves: LDS Ethnic Groups Oral History Project,\u201d Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 25, no. 4: 99\u2013110.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Hokulani K. Aikau, A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai\u2018i<\/em> (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012); Riley M. Moffat, Fred E. Woods, and Jeffrey N. Walker, Gathering to La\u2018ie. La\u2018ie<\/em> (Hawai\u2018i: Jonathan Napela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Island Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai\u2018i, 2011).<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Walter E. A. van Beek, “Mormon Europeans or European Mormons? An \u201cAfro-European\u201d view on religious colonization,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 38, no. 4 (2005): 3\u201336.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 Reid L. Neilson in the title of his edition of Hugh J. Cannon, To the Peripheries of Mormondom: The Apostolic Around-the-World Journey of David O. McKay, 1920\u20131921 <\/em>(Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2011).<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 W. Paul Reeve, \u201cPost New Mormon History: A Manifesto,\u201d Journal of Mormon History<\/em> 35, no. 3 (2009), 224.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 In his comparison of \u201cheadquarters culture\u201d and \u201cMormons living elsewhere,\u201d Michael Quinn includes in the latter group all the church members who do not live in the immediate vicinity of church headquarters: \u201cIn religious, social, cultural, and psychological terms, church members at LDS headquarters have experienced Mormonism very differently from Mormons living elsewhere. Over time, this made the Mormon majority in headquarters culture “a different breed” from Mormons who lived as minorities.\u201d D. Michael Quinn, \u201cLDS \u2018Headquarters Culture\u2019 and the Rest of Mormonism: Past and Present,\u201d Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 34, no. 3\u20134 (2001): 137.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 https:\/\/globalmormonism.byu.edu\/<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> \u00a0\u00a0 Mary Jordan, \u201cThe New Face of Global Mormonism\u201d, The Washington Post,<\/em> 19 November 2007. http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2007\/11\/18\/AR2007111801392.html<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reid L. Neilson, ed. Global Mormonism in the 21st Century<\/em> (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2008); Mikael Rothstein, \u201cReligious Globalisation: A Material Perspective. Assessing the Mormon Temple Institution in terms of Globalisation,\u201d New Religions and Globalization. Empirical, Theoretical, and Methodological Perspectives<\/em>, ed. Armin W. Geertz and Margit Warburg, 243\u2013260 (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2008); Lawrence A. Young, \u201cConfronting Turbulent Environments: Issues in the Organizational Growth and Globalization of Mormonism, \u201dContemporary Mormonism,<\/em> ed. Marie Cornwall, Tim B. Heaton, and Lawrence A. Young, 43\u201363 ( Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Warrick N. Kear, \u201cThe LDS Sound World and Global Mormonism,\u201d Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 34, no. 3 & 4 (2001): 77\u201393.<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0 Melissa Wei-Tsing Inouye, \u201cThe Oak and the Banyan: The \u2018Glocalization\u2019 of Mormon Studies,\u201d Mormon Studies Review<\/em> 1 (2014): 70\u201379.<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a> See for example, Airen Hall, “A World Religion from a Chosen Land: The Competing Identities of the Contemporary Mormon Church,” The Changing World Religion Map: Sacred Places, Identities, Practices and Politics<\/em>, ed. Stanley D. Brunn, 803\u2013817 (Springer, 2015).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is an adequate label for the areas outside of the so-called \u201cChurch\u2019s center\u201d? If it pertains to non-US countries, \u201cinternational\u201d is commonly used, but semantically it is flawed because the United States itself belongs to the circle of all nations. \u201cForeign\u201d and \u201calien\u201d sound non-inclusive for a church that emphasizes worldwide unity and belonging among its members. As a neutral geographical term, \u201cabroad\u201d fails if one wants to include in the discussion ethnic minorities within the United States. Those have become particularly noteworthy as the Church again allows Mormon wards with a foreign ethnic or lingual identity on American soil, such as Cambodian, Korean, or Russian.[1] Within the United States, thousands of immigrant Mormons, or converted after immigration, represent various cultures, languages, and countries. For decades the Church has been struggling to find optimal ways to accommodate their needs. Recognized American racial and ethnic groups, such as American Indian and African American, form similar groups for specific study. Even the interaction with Native Americans is, ironically, part of a negotiated process with an \u201coutside\u201d group. The same can be said of Hawaiians.[2] It shows the ambiguity and complexity of our boundaries. Also, the terms \u201cinternational\u201d (meant as outside the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":34719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/international.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34717"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34722,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34717\/revisions\/34722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}