Seeing “Apostates” Clearly: Reconsidering the Legitimacy of Ex-Member Testimony in Documentary Representations of Scientology
This article analyzes popular and academic reviews of the book and film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief in relation to scholarly debates over the status of “apostate” testimony in the study of New Religious Movements (NRMs). Using a Foucauldian discourse analysis – an examination o...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group
2021
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In: |
Journal of media and religion
Year: 2021, Volume: 20, Issue: 1, Pages: 17-37 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Scientology
/ Apostasy
/ New religion
/ Experience account
/ Discourse
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RelBib Classification: | AA Study of religion AZ New religious movements ZB Sociology |
Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
Summary: | This article analyzes popular and academic reviews of the book and film Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief in relation to scholarly debates over the status of “apostate” testimony in the study of New Religious Movements (NRMs). Using a Foucauldian discourse analysis – an examination of contested statements of “truth” – it accounts for the significance of ex-member testimony in recent Scientology exposés and argues the tendency to dismiss such testimony as automatically unreliable needs to be reassessed. Using these exposés and the debate surrounding them as a case study, we can see that considering ex-member testimony as disputed but productive discourse, documentary and journalistic representations of controversial new religions can operate as important sources of information, helping us better map a larger discursive domain wherein allegations of harm intermix with claims of benefit in remarkably complicated ways. |
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ISSN: | 1534-8415 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of media and religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/15348423.2021.1875661 |