Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies: Volume 5, Issue 2 (Autumn 2017)

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https://kb.osu.edu/handle/1811/81511

Issue DOI: https://doi.org/10.18061/1811/81511

Past Reflections and Future Directions in Amish Studies
Special Volume, Issue 2 of 2

Front Matter
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Section 3: Potentialities for New Perspectives in Amish Studies

Birthing New Kinships: The Cross-Pollinating Potential of Amish Health Research
Jolly, Natalie pp. 147-161
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Of Shoulders and Shadows: Selected Amish Scholarship before 1963
Donnermeyer, Joseph F. pp. 162-195
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The Undistinguished Scholar of the Amish, Werner Enninger, -or- Has the Time Yet Come for Rigorous Theory in Amish Studies?
Anderson, Cory pp. 196-238
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Explaining Anabaptist Persistence in the Market Economy: Past Paradigms and New Institutional Economics Theory
Lutz, Martin pp. 239-257
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Bourdieu in Plain Anabaptist Studies? A Symposium Review of Out of Place: Social Exclusion and Mennonite Migrants in Canada by Luann Good Gingrich
Longhofer, Jeffrey; Reschly, Steven; Good Gingrich, Luann pp. 258-269
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Book Review

The Amish: A Concise Introduction By Steven Nolt
Stein, Rachel pp. 270-272
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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

Front Matter (Volume 5, Issue 2, Autumn 2017)
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017)
Birthing New Kinships: The Cross-Pollinating Potential of Amish Health Research
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Jolly, Natalie
In this article, I explore the connections between Amish gender socialization and Amish birth practices to suggest that an Amish construction of femininity shapes the ways that Amish women experience childbirth. This study is framed by Amish women's health research and takes as a point of departure two observations often made about Amish childbirth practices: (1) medical research has found that Amish women have shorter labors than their non-Amish (English) counterparts, and (2) doctors, midwives, and birth attendants have argued that Amish women's expression of pain during labor and delivery differs substantially from their English counterparts. I draw on my two years of ethnographic work on Amish midwifery and homebirth to argue that there is deep sociological richness in medical findings that often dismiss Amish life as merely culturally anomalous. I argue that Amish birth is shaped by the norms of Amish society, particularly those that govern gender. I conclude that many of the features of Amish birth that have so interested health researchers cannot be fully understood without a sociological investigation of Amish life, and plain Anabaptist scholarship seems well positioned to foreground the social and cultural features of Amish society that likely remain invisible to health researchers. Reciprocally, comparative health studies on the Amish may illuminate areas of inquiry that were previously understudied and offer new possibilities for future social and cultural research within plain Anabaptist studies.
Of Shoulders and Shadows: Selected Amish Scholarship before 1963
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Donnermeyer, Joseph F.
John Hostetler's first edition of Amish Society in 1963 is a milestone in the advancement of scholarship about the Amish. It was revised and re-issued through three more editions. Even though the fourth and final edition was released nearly a quarter century ago, in 1993, Amish Society remains the most frequently cited authoritative sources about the Amish. Yet, there was a wealth of other solid scholarly work about the Amish before 1963, by such notable authors as Elmer Lewis Smith, Calvin Bachman, Walter Kollmorgen, Charles Loomis, and William Schreiber. The purpose of this review essay is to re-consider the merits of their scholarship, to demonstrate why those interested in understanding the Amish and other plain Anabaptist groups today should re-discover what they had to say. This review essay can be read either in its entirety, or, if the reader is interested only in certain scholars, just within sub-sections, as they are written as stand-alone essays, with minimal cross-referencing.
The Undistinguished Scholar of the Amish, Werner Enninger, -or- Has the Time Yet Come for Rigorous Theory in Amish Studies?
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Anderson, Cory
Werner Enninger embodies the highest standards of methodological rigor and theoretical insight in Amish studies, and this article synthesizes his 30-some publications written in English. Enninger was a socio-linguist from Germany who conducted field research in Delaware in the 1970s and published intensely in the 1980s. His mixed methods address common hurdles field researchers face and offer meticulously detailed qualitative and quantitative data. Enninger's theory can be organized around a social system model that fuses structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism. Within the model, he proposes a four-part superstructure—(1) core, group-defining values, namely, religious community and separation, (2) are realized in concrete norms in timeless (e.g. New Testament) and time-specific (e.g. Ordnung) ways (3) that are internalized, (4) producing an orderly role system. The role system is accessible to system actors, who assume roles through identifiable symbols (role attributes), notably, dress configurations. Mutual identification of alter distributes role privileges in the ensuing interaction and triggers language choice. The enactment of roles defines the social situation. Social situations of central importance to the brotherhood have fixed roles that are assumed and ascribed, with strong sanctions for deviance. Peripheral social situations permit greater role making, where roles are negotiated, ascribed statuses are reduced, and social sanctions are fewer. Peripheral social situations are the primary source for social change. Enninger's work is not for the faint-of-mind or impatient, yet provides a much-needed source of inspiration to strengthen future Amish studies research, theoretically and methodologically.
Explaining Anabaptist Persistence in the Market Economy: Past Paradigms and New Institutional Economics Theory
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Lutz, Martin
Amish and plain Anabaptist economic research has focused either on the religious ethic in the tradition of Weber—religious convictions drive economic behavior—or the ethnic resources model—resources are mobilized to entrepreneurship. Both approaches (1) neglect the greater market context within which the plain Anabaptists have been embedded since the Early Modern Period, and (2) focus primarily on either early Anabaptism or the late 1900s. This article presents New Institutional Economics Theory as an alternative paradigm which understands people's economic behavior by the institutional contexts they are in. It looks at the World War II economy in the United States when many Anabaptist COs applied to be deferred to farm work by arguing that such work is of national importance. It shows that the Amish were thoroughly involved in the modern economy in the 1940s, as Walter Kollmorgen suggests. The Amish also shifted their institutional rules (the Ordnung) in response to larger institutional changes (e.g. wartime America). New Institutional Theory can help scholars better understand how Amish engage in, are shaped by, and shape the larger market.
Bourdieu in Plain Anabaptist Studies? A Symposium Review of Out of Place: Social Exclusion and Mennonite Migrants in Canada by Luann Good Gingrich
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Longhofer, Jeffrey; Reschly, Steven; Good Gingrich, Luann
The Amish: A Concise Introduction By Steven Nolt
(Ohio State University. Libraries, 2017) Stein, Rachel

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