Insider and Outsider Knowledge: Etic and Emic Perspectives on Empirical Missiological Research and Its Consequences for Theological Education

Definition of the terms etic and emic

The terms etic and emic were first introduced by the American linguist Kenneth Pike (1912–2000) in 1954. Pike was also the first president of the Summer Institute of Linguistics, an institution that fosters the translation of the Bible. In his book Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behavior, Pike defines material characteristics of language, which he called “etic”—because they can be observed by outsiders, such as tones, syllables, or intonation, and those that are important for the functioning of the language that cannot be observed by outsiders without insider knowledge. The expression “etic” derives from the word phonetics which is the study of all possible sounds for human speech, resulting in an international phonetic alphabet. His term “emic,” which has its origins in the word phonemics, is the study of those sounds that are significant for the speakers of a given language—those who know the language—the insiders, so to speak. Pike always began the study of a language by writing it, using the international phonetic alphabet; once he saw the patterns in the informant’s speech, he then searched to identify those sounds which changed meaning for the speaker. In his book Pike introduces many examples, for instance, the English word seal that refers to an animal as well as to a “seal of wax” that is used to refer to a sign that proves the validity of medieval letters. Non-native English speakers also know the trouble distinguishing clearly between “their car” and “there is a car.” ⁴ For insiders of the language there is a clear difference between these words; they know it easily by the context of speech. Outsiders, however, simply hear the same sound and cannot distinguish unless they have deeper comprehension of the language.

This approach of distinguishing between an etic and an emic perspective is applied to social science in general. It is also used in ethnology by the Freiburg professor of ethnology, Lothar Käser, ⁵ and by the American professor of religious studies, Russell McCutcheon, to classify and compare collected data about religious phenomena with data taken from other religions. ⁶ However, in missiology it is not widely used as a specific concept for conducting research. ⁷ Before introducing two illustrations of recent research, the following passage presents a historical example to underscore the necessity of this approach.

Defining the problem

The issue of an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective as a problematic topic can be traced back to the first encounters of Europeans with other religions. This can be illustrated with Hinduism as a modern construct. The American theologian of religions, Harold Netland, discusses how the concept of Hinduism as a distinct religion was developed within the context of the encounter between India and the West during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. ⁸ During that time British colonial administrators, Orientalist scholars, and missionaries needed a category to deal with what they encountered in India and could not categorize it within their British paradigms. The diversity they encountered in India was simply overwhelming, so that they could not comprehend it. Thus, missionaries and colonial administrators showed interest in religious texts, and tried to understand Indian diversity by studying holy scriptures, scriptures that were not known by all people in India.

To deal with what was foreign to them, missionaries and colonial administrators used the paradigm of Christianity and Islam, two religious traditions they were familiar with. These two religions are based on holy scriptures. Therefore, coming to India, the Europeans thought that to understand a religion one should study its holy books. They also used the census to identify as Hindu all people from India who were not Muslim, Christian, Sikh, or Zoroastrian, not comprehending the uncountable different people groups existing among the Indians. In this way, these missionaries and colonial administrators encouraged the idea that Hindus comprise a distinct and cohesive religious group. Despite the great variety of popular religious and philosophical traditions in India, it became common to use the term “Hinduism” in speaking of a coherent, comprehensive, and unified religious system that could be compared to other systems such as Christianity and Islam. It is now well established that the term Hinduism was a category invented by outsiders in an attempt to interpret and explain the complexities British administrators and missionaries found in Indian religious and social life. For this the colonial officials used texts from people who had never been to India such as the famous philologist Max Friedrich Müller (1823–1900). ⁹ Müller was called in 1868 to teach comparative literature at Oxford. He received international recognition when he launched and published “The Sacred Books of the East” series, a translation of religious texts in 1879.

In each of the introductions to a specific religion and its texts, Müller starts by comparing religions with each other. For instance, he compares the Vedic hymn to the Unknown god with the Psalms of David. ¹⁰ As a scholar of language, Müller saw a close relationship between language and religion. He alleged that every nation is the bearer of a certain culture, language, and religion. Therefore, according to Müller, these topics can be best analyzed through language. The analysis of language then generates the analysis of religion because a people’s spirit, language, and religion are inseparably connected. Moreover, problems that evolve through the comparison of religions can be solved through linguistic analysis. Müller concluded that there are three major language families and thus religions can be traced back to three major roots: the Aryan, the Semitic, and the Turanian. He and his students then used these classifications by languages to also categorize religions according to their languages. Being an outsider to Indian society and thought, Müller interpreted these texts from a European perspective.

Moreover, it is to be mentioned that the representation of life and thought in India always happened in European languages. Thus, Europeans needed European categories and terms to speak about Indian topics. ¹¹ In the same way, people listened to these accounts and interpreted them within their given paradigms. This influenced the view of Indian society in European countries.

Unfortunately, this etic image of Hinduism persisted and today, students of religion may be confused when they study Hinduism, because for them who try to understand the diversity from a Western, Greek-influenced logic, “Hinduism” is full of contradictions that still cannot be harmonized. Their image of Hinduism as a religion is to be comprehended only within a paradigm influenced by European Christian paradigms. Outsiders came and understood what they saw from their perspectives and interpreted their observations within their own paradigms. They did not distinguish between an etic and an emic perspective, an outsider’s and an insider’s perspective. As Europeans they took their interpretative paradigms for granted and as absolute. They did not question their perspective. ¹²

Therefore, to avoid such mistakes, it is beneficial for scholars and students in the discipline of missiology to take the distinction between etic and emic vantage points into consideration. However, with this distinction an epistemological problem will become obvious. What is truth? The insider’s or the outsider’s perspective?

The distinction of etic and emic as an epistemological problem

As we have seen, it was Kenneth Pike who introduced the terminology of etic and emic. Two reactions to Pike’s terminology are to be highlighted. Firstly, the Canadian scholar of religion Wilfred C. Smith (1916–2000) argued that no statement made by a scholar of religion is valid unless the religious believer could accept it as correct. ¹³ Otherwise, Smith argues, “It seems to me that the aspiration here is not a knowledge of the real world, but an abstract formula.” ¹⁴ Smith emphasizes the priority of a clear emic perspective on religion as the only authority. This would mean that what scholars think about a certain religion will never be of value if it contradicted statements made by practicing adherents.

The question here is whether researchers can ever be neutral, or do they bring their own biased perspective into research? In other words, can Christians do research on Buddhism? Will they ever be able to understand Buddhism? Don’t they interpret Buddhism within a Christian paradigm? The discussion here is whether it is acceptable to speak about a religion or a culture that is different to one’s own without having experienced the fascination and beauty of that religion in question. ¹⁵

But, on the other hand, can insiders of a certain religion have an objective view on the matter? Insiders might be blind to problems that evolve due to certain practices, simply because they do not know other points of view. Here, the question becomes an epistemological one. Who is able to see the truth? These are the concerns of the American anthropologist Marvin Harris (1927–2001), who alleges that the goal of research and scholarship is not to determine what the insider may or may not mean by their beliefs or actions but, instead, to provide explanations for why they do or think what they do. Harris emphasizes a “priority of observer-orientation over actor-orientation.” ¹⁶ Without using the terms, Harris was, thus, much more in favor of an etic interpretation of observations.

His critique is valid: Is the emic perspective the only truth? “Whom do I listen to?” ¹⁷ Furthermore, from the perspective of missiology, how should mission theology deal with religious practices with obviously negative human consequences such as female genital mutilation? When is the emic perspective to be prioritized, and when the etic? This issue becomes more dominant when you regard missiology not only as a descriptive discipline, but as a discipline that attempts to come up with normative theological solutions for the life of the church. For instance, visiting churches in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon, you will notice that in some churches a bottle of water stands on the altar.. ¹⁸ This holy water is often used in deliverance or healing services by spreading it on Christians to cleanse them ritually. An outsider’s (Western) perspective may judge this ritual as magic and conclude that the churches in Cameroon are heavily influenced by a form of syncretism. This custom may be regarded as hindering a theologically sound church life. On the other hand, pastors in Cameroon allege that Jesus and the apostles also used elements in their healing ministries. ¹⁹ Whose perspective is the truth?

Now, students of missiology face a dilemma when it comes to empirical research. Humans are biased. Either they have an insider’s or an outsider’s perspective. Missiologists do not have unimpeded access to the intentions and meanings of the people, societies, or institutions they study, or, to take the contrary view, are all human observers cut off from ever being able to see past their own biases and presumptions? People cannot, in the words of Russell McCutcheon, climb out of their skin! ²⁰ Objectivity simply is out of reach. As humans, we cannot take the god’s view. Other religious traditions are also aware of this reality. For instance, at the Ryoanji, a Zen temple in Kyôtô, there is a famous rock garden. “The garden consists of a rectangular plot of pebbles surrounded by low earthen walls, with fifteen rocks laid out in small groups on patches of moss. An interesting feature of the garden’s design is that from any vantage point at least one of the rocks is always hidden from the viewer.” ²¹ It is said that once you have reached Buddhist enlightenment, you are able to see all fifteen rocks at once. This may be used to illustrate the epistemological problem humans are facing. There is always something hidden to the human perspective. There is no such thing as real objectivity. ²² We need more than only one’s own perspective. Otherwise, all results of missiological research may be criticized as mere constructs. There is need for the descriptions of people who can take on different views to “describe the rocks” for the researcher. So, concerning the topic of this article, how can missiological research get to a more objective perspective on cultural and religious phenomena? There is a need for voices that have the insider’s experience and perspective. Two recent examples from missiological and sociological research illustrate how this may be put into practice.

Illustrations

In her article, “«Ich hebe meine Augen auf zu den Bergen – Woher kommt mir Hilfe?» Praktizierte Religion auf der Flucht”, ²³ Claudia Hoffmann, theologian at the University of Basel, Switzerland, presents her research on rituals among refugees. She asks the question, “Which rituals play a role while fleeing?” ²⁴ Hoffmann has never had the experience of being a refugee herself; she was an outsider to the topic. Her paper starts with a reflection on migration and a theological consideration of rituals. Talking with refugees mainly from Eritrea, Hoffmann continues to describe the circumstances of the church in Eritrea as well as the political situation in the country. With this outsider knowledge, she then turns towards the refugees, and, using the metaphor “going-alongside,” ²⁵ she introduces individual refugees and gives them a voice in her research. With her second step she introduces the emic perspective of the Eritrean refugees, a standpoint she could not take by herself. Thus, Hoffmann shows in her synthesis how the singing and praying of Psalms helps refugees from Eritrea to overcome hardships and the experience of all kinds of violence.

A second illustration comes from Hanna Rettig, a sociologist at the University of Hildesheim, Germany. In her doctoral dissertation Making Missionaries—Junge Evangelikale und ihre Mission, ²⁶ she writes about an evangelical Christian discipleship training school in Germany. For this research project Rettig participated in a program of this specific discipleship training school for almost half a year. As a non-Evangelical, Rettig takes an etic perspective on everything she observes. For instance, Rettig accompanies the students on an evangelistic outreach to Thailand and tells how the members prayed before outreaches, how they performed short sketches and tried to relate to the Thai people, while sharing the gospel with them. She describes the everyday life at the discipleship training school with classes, worship meetings, and life in the dorms. During this time, from her non-Evangelical perspective—from her etic point of view—Rettig interprets her observations from the perspective of a trained sociologist. She shows group dynamics and analyzes the overall structure and organization of the discipleship training school and its leaders and participants. This can easily be done from an etic perspective. But, the question remains, whether this mere method reflects what is really happening in such a program. Rettig, thus, goes a step further and gives the participants and the leaders of the program a voice. She conducted interviews and took part in the whole six-month program, talking with the participants and thus she integrated an emic perspective in her study. This integration of etic and emic perspectives helped the research project to come up with more objective results than if she would have neglected either one.

Finally, this article continues with some practical considerations for empirical research in missiology.

Practical considerations

Doing Religious Studies as well as Mission Studies, firstly, it is significant to understand one’s own bias. Research on missiological questions can never be objective. It is important to remember that students and researchers normally have merely one ²⁷ perspective—the etic or the emic. To get a more objective perspective, however, the integration of both views is necessary.

Thomas Krefeld, a philologist from the University of Munich, Germany, advises, “Scholars without general, etic categories won’t get access to the cultural connection they are describing. For a deeper understanding, however the emic knowledge of the people is of fundamental significance.” ²⁸ According to Krefeld, three steps are necessary for doing research on a specific phenomenon. First, the use of the etic approach. This is realized when a phenomenon is studied from outside the system in which it occurs. This means the study of all literary sources on the topic in question that are available. This step aims at a broad general picture, an etic picture. This, however, is not enough. Following Krefeld’s advice, talking to insiders, asking them about their experiences, their motivations, their emotions are also needed to get the emic perspective, the insider’s view. Otherwise, the research will remain imbalanced.

In a third step, like Hoffmann and Rettig, the integration of the emic perspectives into the findings of literature research will generate more objective results. This means that the results of the etic findings are to be interpreted by the results of empirical studies and vice versa. Fostering this approach in missiology will have consequences for theological education.

Consequences for theological education for missions

There is no totally objective view on a specific religious phenomenon. That is simply impossible for outsiders as well as for insiders; no one can assume a meta-perspective on religious experiences. However, having a more objective perspective through the integration of etic and emic findings on religious phenomena becomes a new contribution to the scientific study of religious and cultural aspects of people’s lives, and thus a significant way of doing missiological research. Moreover, this approach will enable missionaries to carry out a culturally more appropriate and thus more effective intercultural ministry. Therefore, in missionary education, it becomes crucial for students to have means of sociological, cultural, and ethnographic research at hand. They need to learn how to conduct participant observation and interviews. Furthermore, it is beneficial for theological education that students learn to integrate the findings of their empirical research in the existing body of knowledge. This means that students face the challenge of library study as well as “getting their hands dirty” in the field. Theological education that aims to educate future ministers and missionaries encourages students to integrate what they learn from the books with what they learn from the people.

The hope is that this may help people like Jean from the beginning of this article to feel better understood, and thus, it may help to foster a deeper interreligious and intercultural understanding. This eventually leads to a better understanding of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.