Durkheim on 'primitive' religion: A reappraisal

Abstract

Durkheim is widely regarded as one of the most prominent scholars of the sociology of religion. While many scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been criticised for racist bias in support of imperial projects by decolonial and postcolonial thinkers in recent years, Durkheim is often celebrated for his rejection of the questionable evolutionist ideas of his time. This paper reconsiders Durkheim’s theory of so-called ‘primitive’ religion in relation to other preeminent theories of religion of his era, such as Edward Burnett Tylor’s theory of religion as animism. Utilising a postcolonial approach, the paper firstly critically examines the use of concepts such as ‘primitive’ in Tylor and Durkheim’s anthropological and sociological theories of religion, respectively. It is demonstrated that, although Durkheim was overtly critical of evolutionist approaches of his day and attempted to break from this dominant paradigm by focusing more on social structures, rather than temporal development, he failed in freeing himself from prevalent racist assumptions. Despite this failing and the fact that his theorising of religion as totemism has long since fallen out of favour, however, his focus on the social nature and function of religion should still be celebrated.