Digital Commons Network^™

Bourdieu In Plain Anabaptist Studies? A Symposium Review Of Good Gingrich, Luann. 2016. Out Of Place: Social Exclusion And Mennonite Migrants In Canada. Toronto, On: University Of Toronto Press., Jeffrey Longhofer, Steven Reschly, Luann Good Gingrich

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Editor’s introduction—This symposium offers the reviews of two authors who, without sparing whatever criticism can be mustered, hold her work up as archetypal for rigorous methods and theory in plain Anabaptist studies. I have little more to say about Luann Good Gingrich’s work than that it is has been long, long in waiting. But let me add just a bit more and say why.

Now here is a study where a researcher has brought thick theory to interpret meticulously collected and presented interview data about a plain Anabaptist group (Old Colony Mennonites) in the context of broader forces. Yet, with …

Explaining Anabaptist Persistence In The Modern Economy: Past Paradigms And New Institutional Theory, Martin Lutz

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

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 …

The UnDistinguished Scholar Of The Amish, Werner Enninger, -Or- Has The Time Yet Come For Rigorous Theory In Amish Studies?, Cory Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

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 …

Of Shoulders And Shadows: Selected Amish Scholarship Before 1963, Joseph Donnermeyer

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

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 …

Birthing New Kinships: The Cross-Pollinating Potential Of Amish Health Research, Natalie Jolly

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

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 …

Title Page And Table Of Contents 5(2), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

Reviving The Demographic Study Of The Amish, Corey Colyer, Cory Anderson, Joseph Donnermeyer, Rachel Stein, Samson Wasao

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

The Amish exhibit distinctive demographic patterns, notably high fertility. While scholars have studied Amish population dynamics for more than a half century, recent research in this area is limited. We believe the time is ripe to reverse this trend. This article reviews data collection methods, points to a variety of accessible sources of new data, presents some preliminary results from the analysis of one such source (the McKune dataset for Holmes County, Ohio), introduces the research agenda and work of the newly formed Amish Population Research Group, and reviews past demographic findings to situate our agenda. An invitation is extended …

Paradigmatic Paradigm Problems: Theory Issues In Amish Studies, Steven Reschly

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Scholars of Amish history and culture, and scholars of Anabaptist and Anabaptist-descent groups more generally, have not engaged consistently or productively with mainstream theoretical developments in social and cultural studies. The phrase used most often in Amish Studies, “negotiating with modernity,” has limited usefulness because of its abstractions and time restrictions. A viable alternative rises from the research and writings of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, who formulated Habitus and Field as terms to theorize about the interaction of internal and external in human experience, perhaps the oldest and thorniest issue in the social sciences. Reformulated for more general use as …

Seventy-Five Years Of Amish Studies, 1942 To 2017: A Critical Review Of Scholarship Trends (With An Extensive Bibliography), Cory Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

After 75 years, Amish studies has received no field reviews, an oversight I rectify with this article using several citation analysis techniques. I offer criteria for defining Amish research, which results in 983 references that are analyzed. Amish studies has a very highly centralized core of works; the top one percent of cited references account for nearly 20% of every citation in Amish studies, with Hostetler, Kraybill, Nolt, and Huntington dominating the top list. Few consolidated subareas exist, exceptions being language and health- population research. Analyzing Amish studies chronologically, the field early on accepted the definitive-sympathetic-authoritative-comprehensive-insider research approach, which legitimated …

Title Page And Table Of Contents 5(1), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

The Dynamics Of Boundaries: Obedience And Transgression Among Bolivian Old Colony Mennonites, Anna Sofia Hedberg

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Boundaries keep people apart just as they keep people together. Boundaries are social constructs made by man in order to maintain the natural order of things. The aim of this article is to elaborate on the social construct of boundaries and particularly acknowledge their dynamic character. Social and cultural boundaries are passable, changeable, and negotiable. Nonetheless, boundaries are fundamental to many peoples’ existence and survival as ethnic and cultural communities and must therefore be acknowledged as essential human needs. By focusing on the members of a conservative Christian community—Old Colony Mennonites in Bolivia—as they carry out practices in relation to …

No Sunday Business': Navigating Religious Rules And Business Opportunities In The Shipyard Mennonite Settlement, Belize, Carel Roessing, Daniëlle Bovenberg

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Within the Old Colony Mennonite settlements of Belize, the relationship between religious and economic practices entails a constant navigation of the acceptable, where threats of worldliness come from technology and from contact with outsiders. This paper takes as its focus the business of a butcher in Shipyard settlement, whose daily work testifies to a navigation of both of these potential threats. This entrepreneur uses technologies of energy, transportation, and communication—operated in part by an outside worker—to extend the radius of his meat business. The tense environment of Shipyard’s religious diversity frames our discussion of these observations, leading us to reconsider …

Title Page And Table Of Contents 4(2), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

The Amish Settlement In Honduras, 1968-1978: A (Half) Failed Attempt To Develop An Amish Understanding Of Mission, Cory Anderson, Jennifer Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

For their several-hundred years of successfully maintaining Amish settlements in North America, for what reason would a group of families—largely from Nappanee, IN, and Aylmer, ON—want to start a settlement in Honduras? This account traces the genesis of this Latin American settlement to the mid-century restlessness among Old Order Amish for religious and moral reform. The account especially follows families from Daviess County, IN, who, after failed settlement attempts in Michigan and Ohio, helped found Aylmer, ON, a successful revisionist Amish settlement. From there, Peter Stoll, one of the Aylmer founders, desired to move to Honduras for two reasons: (1) …

Title Page And Table Of Contents 4(1), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

Advances In Hutterian Scholarship, William L. Smith

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Review of: Janzen, Rod, and Max Stanton. 2010. The Hutterites in North America. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Review of: Katz, Yossi, and John Lehr. 2014[2012] Inside the Ark: The Hutterites in Canada and the United States [2nd ed.]. Regina, SK: University of Regina Press.

Janzen, a historian, and Stanton, an anthropologist, spent twenty-five years visiting Hutterite colonies in the United States and Canada, witnessing firsthand the changes to Hutterite life. The authors provide readers with an exceptional historical-social-cultural analysis of the everyday lives of Hutterites. The Hutterites are a communal group and an intentional community who share …

Unser Leit Symposium, Crist Miller, Anna Raber, Christopher Petrovich, Leroy Beachy

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Editor’s Introduction

Absolutely nothing about Amish history can be compared to the mammoth two volume set Leroy Beachy has compiled. Beautifully cased, these two sets feel like a treasure in your hands. But the contents are the real value. A lifelong project, this book is readable and beautifully illustrated. I have been surprised to hear from the historically un-inclined among the Amish and Amish-Mennonites how this volume drew them in and kept their attention.

What Leroy Beachy has done is set Amish history in a narrative style that is culturally informed in nuanced ways too numerous to list. For one, …

Doubling Time And Population Increase Of The Amish, Joseph Donnermeyer

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Current estimates of Amish population growth often cite a “doubling time” figure, but fail to substantiate the source from which the estimate was derived. As well, some estimates of population increase, such as by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College, use net change in the number of church districts as a proxy to determine population change, rather than a more precise counting up of children and adults. Unfortunately, a direct “head count” of the Amish, and changes in this count overtime to create a doubling time estimate, would be very daunting, Until there is a …

Practicality And Identity As Functions Of Education In Old Order Mennonite And Hutterite Communities, Janelle Zimmerman

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This study is an exploration of common structures, theories, and practices among the educational systems of selected Anabaptist communities, focusing on a Midwestern Schmeideleut Hutterite community and the Groffdale Conference (Old Order) Mennonites in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Building on ideas of utopian communities, this research suggests two key foci of education as practiced in Hutterite and Old Order Mennonite communities. The first is identity, both of the community—as manifested by a common purpose and identity—and of the individual—as manifested by a belief in free will. The second is practicality, both in the physical (pragmatic) and metaphysical (idealistic) realm. Anabaptist communities tend …

An Assessment Of The Educational Choices Of Emerging Adults From A Small Mennonite Denomination And Their Later Church And Service Involvement, Daniel Ziegler

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This study was designed to provide Rosedale Bible college, a Conservative Mennonite Conference school in Ohio, with critical information to increase its understanding of the educational choices of emerging adults from its sponsoring denomination and the way those choices correlate with church involvement and volunteerism later in life. The study also offers a glimpse into the educational and religious context of these young adults and the denomination they were part of as youth. A 16-question survey was distributed to 1,068 individuals ages 26-32 who attended one of the denomination’s churches when in high school. The survey queried respondents on personal …

Amish Education: A Synthesis, Cory Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Amish education is one of the most researched subtopics in Amish studies. This article is a meta-analysis of the existing literature about Amish education, finding that most research discusses how the parochial school system functions to socialize students into the broader Amish social system. In particular, the school socializes students into (1) several major Amish-defining internalized dispositions, ideologies, and outlooks and (2) the meso- and micro-level Amish social structure. Several anomalies do exist, including their educational approach to special needs children, parochial school dysfunctions, and alternative schooling methods. The article concludes with suggestions for future research, including more rigorous ethnographic …

"Title Page, Table Of Contents, And Editors' Introduction 3(1), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

The Amish Symposium, Megan Bogden, Steven Reschly, Benjamin Zeller, Tom Coletti

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

The Amish is a 500-some page university press-sized handbook that touches on a variety of topical areas. The book is the culmination of two and a half decades each of Kraybill’s, Johnson-Weiner’s, and Nolt’s work about the Amish. Karen Johnson-Weiner published a series of linguistic studies through the 1990s, and from these spring-board works later explored more fully schools and New York settlements. Donald Kraybill’s first Amish-focused publication was a Durkheimian study of the Amish and suicide in 1986. From then on he has maintained this functionalist orientation in comparative studies of plain Anabaptists and Amish responses to cultural, economic, …

Conservative Mennonite Storybooks And The Construction Of Evangelical Separatism, Jennifer Anderson, Cory Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Group-produced literature is representative of and reinforces group behaviors, norms, and beliefs. This study focuses on the missionary theme in literature from three Conservative Mennonite publishers, identifying two major constructs of what we term evangelical separatism. First, Rod & Staff depicts evangelism as establishing stable, integrating church communities in places where none exist, making their offering accessible to any who would care to join while also withholding assessment of outsiders. Second, Christian Light Publications and TGS present missions in a more aggressive, individualized mode, whereby the outside is viewed as a land of darkness and the missionary, in embodying Christ’s …

The Growth Of Amish And Plain Anabaptist Communities In Kentucky, Joseph Donnermeyer, Cory Anderson

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

This article examines the growth of Amish and plain Anabaptist communities and population in Kentucky, one of the few southern states with a sizeable plain Anabaptist presence across much of its rural areas. Within the Amish religious tradition, this study focuses on both the broadly defined Old Order Amish, namely, those who prohibit ownership of motor vehicles for transportation, and the Amish-Mennonites, those who allow ownership. We provide an overview of their community formation and present a county-based estimate of their population. There are now 53 Amish communities in Kentucky, and a population of nearly 10,000. Over half (27) of …

Church District Fissioning And Watershed Boundaries Among Holmes County, Ohio, Amish, Scott Long, Richard Moore

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Upon reaching 40 households, an Amish church district typically divides into two smaller, relatively equally sized districts. This article analyzes the relationship between Amish church divisions and topographic demarcation lines within Clark Township, Holmes County, Ohio, from 1930 to 2010. In findings, divisions often follow physical geography boundaries, such as ridges that outline the edge of a watershed, or rivers and streams that essentially define topography within a watershed. Further, Amish leaders divide churches with objectives based on several socioreligious factors, from the maintenance of the faith community to the goal of preserving Amish neighborhoods and rural identity, while also …

Living On The Edge: Old Colony Mennonites And Digital Technology Usage, Kira Turner

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Mainstream society’s perceptions of traditional Mennonites tend towards viewing them as technologically deficient. Yet, cell phones, computers, and tablets are increasingly prevalent within this population. Challenging stereotypes, this article considers digital technology usage by Old Colony Mennonites (OCM) in Southwestern Ontario (SWO). Rooted in the Anabaptist tradition, a lengthy history of migration led the OCM to settle in Mexico. Yet, due to economic circumstances, many continue to travel to and from SWO, resulting in a transformation; from maintaining an isolated lifestyle to one that includes some form of mainstream society. This shift includes digital technology usage, specifically texting, social media, …

Title Page And Table Of Contents 2(2), Japas Editors

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Title page, journal information, and table of contents

Book Reviews Of Weaver-Zercher's Thrill Of The Chaste And Keiser's Pennsylvania German In The American Midwest, Sarah Jasmine Stork, Lara Downing

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Over the course of her book, Valerie Weaver-Zercher guides us through an analysis of the constituents of the increasingly popular Amish-fiction genre. In particular, her chapters explore the content of stories that fall within the genre, the general writing style employed by authors of Amish fiction, the common ways that Amish fiction functions for readers, and a few concerns with regards to the genre that Weaver-Zercher finds worthy of additional attention. In discussing the content of Amish fiction, Weaver-Zercher not only presents common attributes of the main characters (especially the protagonist) but also establishes major themes in the story settings …

Reliability And Validity Of A Scale To Measure Prejudice Toward Old Order Amish, William Mcguigan

Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies

Numerous studies have examined prejudice in regard to race, age, sexual orientation, and gender, among others. However, there remains a paucity of research on prejudice toward Christian religious groups. In particular, prejudice towards one of America’s fastest growing religious groups, the Old Order Amish, is rarely examined. Using social categorization theory and based on McConahay’s modern and old-fashioned racism scale, an “Attitude Toward Amish” scale is developed and tested. Factor analysis revealed one dominant component and high internal reliability. The article concludes with a discussion of implications for future research of this rapidly growing population.