ABSTRACT

This chapter argues for an anthropological approach to reincarnation as a politics of time: an alternative contemporary discourse of autochthony that lays an eternal geographical claim over time, directly confounding state-bound forms of sovereignty and belonging. It examines how the Druze, a religious minority in the Middle East, and the Anangu, traditional owners of Uluru and the surrounding region of central Australia, appear to have in common a distinctive belief in reincarnation. The chapter explores reincarnation in Druze beliefs and practices through death rituals, recollected stories of past lives, and the role of reincarnation in reproducing but also in subverting endogamy. It investigates the possibility not so much of a completely different ontological cosmos inhabited by the Anangu and Druze, but rather how reincarnation discourses in these two particular peoples. Our comparative exploration builds upon existing and emerging insights in the anthropology of religion.