Challenge 3: Categorizing Practitioners

Instructions

Recently, we have learned about a tool used by anthropologists to categorize different types of religious practitioners and specialists. What do you think of this system of categorization? Can you recognize practitioners from each category? Is there anything that you would add or change? This challenge has three parts:

Step 1: Review the descriptions of each practitioner type.

Step 2: Sort and categorize examples. Below are twenty practitioner profiles. After discussing with your group, sort each practitioner into the category that best represents it.

Step 3: Create your own categories. For this step, please answer the questions below as a group and submit your answers in Canvas > Assignments > Challenge 3.

1. For the purposes of anthropological inquiry, do you think it is useful to have a system for categorizing different types of practitioners? Why or why not?
2. Were there any practitioners that were particularly difficult to categorize using this typology? Which categories were you deciding between? What made the decision difficult?
3. Did any of the categories seem too broad or too narrow? Do you think that this system would be more effective with just a few, broad categories? Or would you add additional, more specific categories?
4. Did anything seem to be missing from this list of categories? Would you add a new category?
5. If you could create your own category system, what would it look like? 

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