In the Name of Lesser Gods: Fetishism and the Dilemmas of Materiality

This paper interrogates the material turn and its relationship to forms of post- or decolonial thinking through a close examination of the resurgence of interest in the “fetish” in religious studies. In recent years, the twin concepts of fetish and fetishism have become major terms for scholars of religion. In a striking departure from its historical use as a term of racist denigration, the fetish has been revalorized as a focal point of critical reflexivity along explicitly decolonial and materialist lines, distilling in its multiple functions the material turn’s broader intellectual and political ambitions. In this paper I capitalize on that exemplarity. Focusing on one early iteration of fetish-talk in religious studies, namely, the work of Charles Long and his “imagination of matter,” I use the fetish as a privileged lens through which to historicize the material turn and examine its enduring theoretical tensions.