Methods for the Study of Religious Change

Edited by

André Droogers [+–]

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

André Droogers is Emeritus Professor of the Cultural Anthropology of Religion at VU University, Amsterdam. He is author of Play and Power in Religion: Collected Essays and co-editor of Studying Global Pentecostalism: Theories and Methods.

Anton van Harskamp [+–]

VU University, Amsterdam

Anton van Harskamp is Emeritus Professor of Religion, Identity and Civil Society at VU University, Amsterdam, and co-editor of Playful Religion: Challenges for the Study of Religion.

The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to study it. Religious studies still uses Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities. Methods for the Study of Religious Change aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world. It argues that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions. Survey chapters on theory and method outline this new approach, while case-study chapters illustrate these ideas with innovative ethnographies of ritual, experience, language, morals and identity.

Introduction

Chapter 1 Introduction [+–] 1-9

André Droogers, FREE

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Faster than ever before, religions and religiosity are changing. Modernization, by which we mean the application of the results of science and technology in society, is an important driving force. Various modernizing processes are at work simultaneously, generating complex and diffuse worldviews. The trend towards individualization presents many people with the freedom and the impetus to devise their own authentic worldviews, including secular views. Not only new forms of individualism, but also new social forms are emerging. In this new constellation, the concept of spirituality has gained popularity, sometimes replacing “religion” as a label for the personal worldview.

Part I Methods for the Study of Contemporary Worldviews

Introduction [+–] 13-15

André Droogers, £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Methodology tells scholars how to proceed. When it is our intention to study religion and religions, we must be aware of the concepts we use, such as “religion,” since they define the limits of our field. They also fill our toolbox. If we wish to extend our field, as is proposed here, to include worldviews, whether religious or secular, the same condition prevails. We may have to change the contents of our toolbox. In this part of the book, to take stock of concepts, of views on the mission of ou trade or on the type of knowledge we wish to gather, and of the changes that are occurring in our field.

Chapter 2 The World of Worldviews [+–] 17-42

André Droogers £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Part I of the book contains the proposal to substitute “religion” as our main topic with “worldview” and rename the Study of Religion (or Religious Studies) as Worldview Studies. One reason to do so is the current variety in worldviews, ending the monopoly that religions had in that area. Of course we should continue studying religion and religions, but under the current circumstances the inclusion of secular worldviews is an appropriate update. Besides, after working for decades with the contrast between religion and science, neglecting the common characteristics between religious and secular worldviews, the worldview banner opens a new perspective. Finally, in defining worldview, it will be suggested that doing academic work also presupposes a worldview. Accordingly, when looking for commonness between science and religion, the comparison between scholars in the study of worldviews and the people they study, whether religious or secular, can be included.

Chapter 3 Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches Compared [+–] 43-60

André Droogers £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Thinking of methods in the current study of religion, two families of methods and techniques dominate the field, either working in a quantitative way, or taking a qualitative approach. The difference is common in the social sciences. In Chapter 3 the alternatives are compared, making the options explicit. The choice for a particular view on the mission of science, either neopositivist or more constructivist, will be shown to be central to the comparison. Another option regards the combination of the two or, in contrast, their exclusive use. In any case, the current worldview situation appears to demand a more ample use of qualitative methods.

Chapter 4 Playing with Perspectives [+–] 61-79

André Droogers £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Chapter 4 discusses an underlying problem in these discussions, which is that very often the options regard two contrasting and exclusive positions. Thus the opposition is presupposed between science and religion, quantitative and qualitative approaches, neo-positivist and constructivist views of science, and many other sets of alternatives. Though the contrast is fuel for the debate engine, the arbitrariness of many standpoints must be acknowledged as well. As a way to deal with this aspect of the academic worldview, play is proposed as a way of dealing simultaneously with alternatives. This is not a plea for eclecticism, though it may result in such a position. However, the playful approach opens the possibility to better appreciate the other point of view. For example, in studying religion from a secular scientific perspective, the playful way of looking at phenomena can be fruitful. Using this “methodological ludism,” even a secular scholar may gain a more ample insight into what motivates a religious participant.

Part II Beyond Dichotomies: Studying Religious Change in Ritual, Experience, Language, Morals and Identity

Introduction [+–] 83-85

Anton van Harskamp £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam

Anton van Harskamp is Emeritus Professor of Religion, Identity and Civil Society at VU University, Amsterdam, and co-editor of Playful Religion: Challenges for the Study of Religion.

In Part II of this volume on the methodology of studying religion, we find five case studies in which such dealing with dichotomies and tensions in the field is illustrated. In each of the case studies one aspect of a form of modern religion is highlighted. The distinct aspects are presented in this order: first the aspect of “ritual” (in a pentecostal Christian community and in a spiritual society in the Netherlands, Chapter 5), second “experience” (in a religious meditation centre in Amsterdam, Chapter 6), third spiritual “language” (in the life stories of a number of Dutch artists, Chapter 7), fourthly “morality” (in a group of Catholics in Limburg, a once deeply “Catholic” province in the Netherlands, Chapter 8) and finally the aspect of “identity” (of Muslims in the Netherlands, Chapter 9). In each chapter the methodological consequences of the qualitative encounter of the researcher’s self and the researched other are discussed.

Chapter 5 Fieldwork on Ritual: Understanding through Participation [+–] 87-100

Kim Knibbe,, £17.50

University of Groningen

Kim Knibbe is Associate Professor Anthropology and Sociology of Religion at Groningen University. She is currently directing the project “Sexuality, Religion and Secularism” with Rachel Spronk (funded by NWO). Previous research focused on Catholicism and spirituality in the Netherlands and on Nigerian Pentecostalism in Europe and the Netherlands. She has also published a series of theoretical and methodological reflections on studying religion. Her most recent co-edited books and special issues are Secular Societies, Spiritual Selves? (with Anna Fedele, 2020) and ‘Theorizing Lived Religion’ (with Helena Kupari, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 2020).

In Chapter 5 on ritual the central methodological question is: what happens when a researcher of religion wishes to observe religious practices while participating fully in religious rituals? So, what happens when a researcher “plays” in her fieldwork between the role of a researcher and the role of a practising believer? Is participation in a religious ritual, that is, is experiencing ritual in affective ways, an adequate strategy to reach for a deeper understanding of religion? The researchers in this chapter demonstrate that by reflection on the self’s participation in religious rituals, as well as on the reactions of the others in this participation, one can arrive at a deeper understanding indeed of the ways rituals are significant for the believers’ ways of giving meaning to their world.

Chapter 6 Fieldwork on Experience: Spirituality, Individuality and Authority [+–] 101-111

Peter Versteeg, £17.50

Independent

Peter Versteeg is a cultural anthropologist and independent researcher. He worked as a project coordinator at the VU Institute for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society (VISOR), VU University of Amsterdam. In 2008 Versteeg was guest editor of a special issue on secularization and existential security in the Netherlands for Social Compass (55 [1]). In 2011 he published with Mellen Press The Ethnography of a Dutch Pentecostal Church: Vineyard Utrecht and the International Charismatic Movement. With Katya Tolstaya he published in 2014 “Inventing a Saint: Religious Fiction in Post-Communist Russia” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Versteeg’s research interests include identity formation, fiction and worldview, and the philosophy of the empirical study of religion.

In Chapter 6 on religious experience the central methodological question is: how to approach religious experience in modern forms of religion? It is often thought that religious experiences in our era of individualization and subjectivation are purely personal, and that the content of an experience can only be found in the singular mind of the individual believer. This chapter even signals that a “dogma” in the academic literature on contemporary spirituality is that reaching for unique and authentic experiences is a prime and fundamental epistemological principle for understanding modern religion. The religion researchers in this chapter argue on the basis of their participation in a new-religious meditation course, that this “dogma” has to be nuanced. Their method of participant observation is the main instrument by which they detect that in a spiritual atmosphere in which personal, unique and authentic experiences are stressed indeed, these experiences are at the same time incited, approved and even pre-constructed by new-religious authority. Precisely by participant observation, so by being social outsider and social insider in new spiritual worlds, one may find that individual, unique and authentic experiences are at the same time socially “constructed.”

Chapter 7 Fieldwork on Language: Artists Express their Worldviews [+–] 112-126

Rhea Hummel £17.50

Department of Arts, Culture and Media (Faculty of Arts) of Groningen University

Rhea Hummel is Assistant Professor at the Department of Arts, Culture and Media (Faculty of Arts) of Groningen University. She studied Dutch Language and Literature, and Literary Studies. In 2011 her PhD thesis on the way contemporary Dutch visual artists and writers express their world views was published. Her research interests include life writing, artists, art, and world view.

In Chapter 7 on spiritual language the central methodological question is: how to study forms of secular and spiritual worldview-making? In this chapter the worldview-making of a few dozen Dutch artists is the central issue. The researcher demonstrates in this chapter that a (playful) combination of ethnography and literary analysis of the language in life narratives of the research “objects” can be a fruitful methodology for arriving at two remarkable observations: first that many de-churched artists are searching for worldviews which apparently replace traditional religious worldviews; second that the seemingly unique and singular life stories of the artists can be modelled in “only” five patterns of worldview-making.

Chapter 8 Fieldwork on Morality: Gossip and Secrets [+–] 127-140

Kim Knibbe £17.50

University of Groningen

In Chapter 8 on morality the central methodological question is: how has the self of the fieldworker/ethnographer to deal with moral dilemmas when this self participates in the moral universe of the other? In this chapter the researcher demonstrates that insight into the deeper layers of morality in religion can be gained by opening up culturally repressed genres of speech, like gossip. By gossip people create a shared moral universe. The problem with which one has to deal ( = to play seriously) is that, when the fieldworker participates in gossip, she as a researcher seems almost simultaneously to break the trust generated through complicity in gossip: research seems to be inevitably a betrayal. The researcher argues that deep reflection on the inevitable involvement in doing qualitative fieldwork and on the equally inevitable betrayal of intersubjectivity is a major condition for doing honest, that is, non-judgmental fieldwork.

Chapter 9 Fieldwork on Identity: Contested and Politicized Research [+–] 141-157

Martijn de Koning,, £17.50

Radboud University

View Website

Martijn de Koning studied anthropology at VU University and defended his PhD thesis there on religious identities among young Moroccan-Dutch youth. He is a participant in the Radboud University research project “Salafism as a Transnational Movement.” In his project he looks at how young Muslims actively engage with the writings of major Salafi religious leaders in the Middle East and their representatives in the Netherlands. He maintains his own weblog: http://religionresearch.org/martijn.

In Chapter 9 on identity the central methodological question is: how has the fieldworker on religion to deal with (to play seriously) with contested identities (of herself and of the others?). In this chapter three cases are discussed in which fieldworkers entered the politicized field of Western Islam in the Netherlands. The researchers in this chapter demonstrate that in order to understand Western Islam from person to person, one has to make shifts in the traditional insider/outsider positioning, in particular by searching for a (partial) physical or mental inclusion in the cultural spheres of Western Islam.

Part III Moving Parameters

Introduction [+–] 161-163

André Droogers £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

If scholars face the task to make sense of people making sense of their lives, then researcher and researched meet on common ground. Two worldviews encounter. Once the two sides are identified as worldviews, our perception of the methodological dynamics of the meeting between researcher and researched takes a new dimension. The usual contrast between science and religion becomes less important. Scholars and their subjects, who for a long time were considered to belong to mutually exclusive categories, can now come closer to each other. Common characteristics and interests can be uncovered from the deeper layers in which they were hidden. The implications of this new perspective can begin to be considered. The parameters start moving.

Chapter 10 The Future of New Worldview Studies [+–] 165-179

André Droogers £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

In Chapter 10 André Droogers shows that when the study of religion is transformed into worldview studies, new challenges and opportunities present themselves. As soon as the distance we keep with regard to the adherents we study diminishes, and moreover our knowledge is found to emerge in our encounter with them, we will inevitably also take part in their worries, since having provided an important impetus. In reaction to these processes, brand new worldview identities have emerged and old identities had to be adapted to new circumstances. The range and variety of worldviews has increased significantly.

Chapter 11 Epilogue: Studying Religion as our Intimate Stranger [+–] 180-187

Anton van Harskamp £17.50

VU University, Amsterdam

Anton van Harskamp is Emeritus Professor of Religion, Identity and Civil Society at VU University, Amsterdam, and co-editor of Playful Religion: Challenges for the Study of Religion.

In Chapter 11, the Epilogue of this volume, Anton van Harskamp points to this need for continuous reinvention of the discipline by reflecting on the idea that doing religion research is an activity in which the very own (social scientific) worldview is at stake. He first makes an inventory of the aspects that demand our attention when we start considering intersubjectivity. What does it mean that in our era secularization and sacralization are both present, in a paradoxical way? Can autonomy and heteronomy be combined successfully, without frustrating the late modern call for authenticity? Or is this the typical virtue of present worldviews?

End Matter

Acknowledgements [+–] 188

André Droogers FREE

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to study it. Religious studies still uses Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities. Methods for the Study of Religious Change aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world. It argues that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions. Survey chapters on theory and method outline this new approach, while case-study chapters illustrate these ideas with innovative ethnographies of ritual, experience, language, morals and identity.

Bibliography [+–] 189-198

André Droogers FREE

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to study it. Religious studies still uses Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities. Methods for the Study of Religious Change aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world. It argues that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions. Survey chapters on theory and method outline this new approach, while case-study chapters illustrate these ideas with innovative ethnographies of ritual, experience, language, morals and identity.

Index [+–] 199-207

André Droogers FREE

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

The world of religious experience is changing much faster than the discipline that claims to study it. Religious studies still uses Christianity as its measure, still frames the world through the model of five world religions, still largely avoids analysis of key issues around power, poverty, violence, pollution, science, and social conflict, and still looks to highlight differences rather than commonalities. Methods for the Study of Religious Change aims to redefine the study of religion as the study of worldviews, of ideas which are active in shaping the world. It argues that the study of religion should focus on people’s worldview-making capacities and should contribute to the critical analysis of global problems and the promotion of cultural and spiritual respect across religions. Survey chapters on theory and method outline this new approach, while case-study chapters illustrate these ideas with innovative ethnographies of ritual, experience, language, morals and identity.

Reviews

This is a highly imaginative contribution to the study of worldviews.
Grace Davie, University of Exeter

Some scholars of religion whose approaches are informed by sociology and/or anthropology may find many salient points here..
Religious Studies Review

An interesting contribution towards articulating various methodologies in the study of religion. It is a timely publication especially in this age of modernization where religious experience is changing at an alarming rate. [It] will appeal to scholars as well as students of religious studies just as it will be an additional literature to the existing ones on research methods. The book is therefore recommended for religious scholars, research fellows and students across all disciplines.'
Reviews in Religion and Theology

.

Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Methods for the Study of Religious Change

From Religious Studies to Worldview Studies

André Droogers [+–]

VU University, Amsterdam (Emeritus)

Anton van Harskamp [+–]

VU University, Amsterdam

Table of Contents

Reviews

Related Journal

Related Interest

Search Equinox

Subjects