Sociology of Religion: Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Religion PDF
Preview Sociology of Religion: Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Religion
Sociology of Religion The first sociology of religion textbook to begin the task of diversifying and decolonizing the study of religion, Sociology of Religion develops a sociological frame that draws together the personal, political and public, showing how religion – its origins, development and changes – is understood as a social institution, influenced by and influencing wider social structures. Organized along sociological structures and themes, the book works with examples from a var- iety of religious traditions and regions rather than focusing in depth on a selection, and foregrounds cultural practice- based understandings of religion. It is therefore a book about ‘religion’, not ‘religions’, that explores the relationship of religion with gender and sexuality, crime and violence, generations, politics and media, ‘race’, ethnicity and social class, disease and disability – highlighting the position of religion in social justice and equality. Each chapter of this book is framed around concrete case studies from a variety of Western and non- Western religious traditions. Students will benefit from thinking about the discipline across a range of geographical and religious contexts. The book includes features designed to engage and inspire students: • Up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of engaging and accessible material • ‘Case Examples’: short summaries of empirical examples relating to the chapter themes • Visually distinct boxes with bullet points, key words and phrases focusing on the context • Questions suitable for private or seminar study • Suggested class exercises for instructors to use • Suggested readings and further readings/ online resources at the end of each chapter Following a review and critique of early sociology of religion, the book engages with more contem- porary issues, such as dissolving the secular/s acred binary and paying close attention to issues of epistemology, negotiations, marginalities, feminisms, identities, power, nuances, globalization, (post) (multiple) modernity (ies), emotion, structuration, reflexivity, intersectionality and urbanization. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students exploring the sociology of religion, religion and society, religious studies, theology, globalization and human geography. Abby Day is a Professor of Race, Faith and Culture in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is also an international expert in the social scientific study of con- temporary religion with particular interests in gender, generations, ethnicity and in decolonizing knowledge. She is a trustee of the Sociological Review, an editorial board member of Religion, peer reviewer for several journals and funding agencies, and past Chair of the British Sociological Association’s religion section. Sociology of Religion Overview and Analysis of Contemporary Religion Abby Day First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 Abby Day The right of Abby Day to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Day, Abby, 1956– author. Title: Sociology of religion: overview and analysis of contemporary religion / Abby Day. Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020039470 (print) | LCCN 2020039471 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367151874 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367151911 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429055591 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Religion and sociology–Textbooks. Classification: LCC BL60.D37 2021 (print) | LCC BL60 (ebook) | DDC 306.6–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039470 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020039471 ISBN: 978-0 -3 67-1 5187-4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0 -3 67-1 5191-1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0 -4 29-0 5559-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK Contents Preface vii PART I Mapping the field 1 1 What is a sociology of religion? 3 2 How do we know what we know? 20 3 The contemporary religious landscape: retreat, reinvention and resurgence 38 PART II Religion and its publics 57 4 Politics and religion 59 5 Violence and crime 75 6 Policing religion: religious equality, social justice and the law 89 PART III Contested borders 105 7 Gender and sexuality 107 8 Generations 125 9 ‘Race’, ethnicity, social class 142 vi Contents PART IV Is nothing, or everything, sacred? 159 10 Religion and media 161 11 Disease, disability and the religious response 178 12 Future religion: nones and beyond 194 Index 214 Preface As one of the most important social forces in any society, religion is both visible and invisible, accepted and rejected, feared and desired. Its ideas, beliefs, values and practices inspire people to perform great, and often terrible, acts. Armies are mobilized and stood down, money spent and withdrawn, treasures amassed and stolen, human rights awarded and transgressed, citizens empowered and subjugated, governments elected and over- thrown, health and sickness addressed and ignored, natural environments protected and destroyed, all in the name of religion. As this book went to press, the world was shuddering with the horrific impact of a pandemic. Lives, livelihoods, faiths and certainties were shattered. Some religious leaders sought to help and calm people; others stoked divisions and encouraged false cures. And yet, not enough people understand how to interpret religion’s public or even political role or how to work within a complex socio-r eligious, multi-f aith, multi-i dentity world. Who, then, will help repair the damage religions often create, or work with them to help resolve wider societal problems? Perhaps you will. Readers of this book are interested in religion’s relationship with such issues as social justice, politics, human rights, economies, public goods and media. This book is designed to help students, often new to the subject of religion and sociology more widely, to use a sociological imagination to understand religion’s social influence and role. The chapters are designed to identify practical examples and use contemporary theories to help understand them. The text’s sociological frame draws together the personal, political and public, showing how religion – its origins, development and changes – is understood as a social institution, influenced by and influencing wider social structures. Organized by sociological structures and themes, the book works with examples from a variety of religious traditions rather than focusing in depth on a selection, and foregrounds cultural practice- based understandings of religion. It is therefore a textbook about ‘religion’, not ‘religions’. The book develops argument and evidence to provide necessary description to enliven ideas, offer in- depth knowledge from numerous sources, create a comparative, problematising schema and suggest several ways forward. Attention to agency and struc- ture, legitimations, history, reproductions, power and economy are important components of a ‘sociological imagination’. Readers will engage with contemporary issues, such as dissolving the secular/s acred binary and paying close attention to issues of epistem- ology, negotiations, ‘race’, feminisms, identities, sexualities, power, nuances, globalisation, (post) (multiple) modernity (ies), emotion, structuration, reflexivity, intersectionality and urbanization. viii Preface Further, in response to widespread and increasing critiques, many universities now conduct detailed course reviews to ensure curricula, approaches, styles, readings and theories reflect diverse populations. A new criterion that is gaining attention is what is sometimes known as liberating, or decolonializing, the curriculum. That means including authors who have been historically muted: women, people of colour, scholars from emerging economies. As a white, middle-c lass cis woman I speak from an unfair, privileged position, and I try to address that. I hope that process is reflected in the textbook as I have worked hard to review all themes to extend the usual bibliographic sources and case studies. All first names are included in the bibliography to make more apparent the author’s assigned or acquired gender. The reason for this is both practical and ethical: knowledge is enriched through widening the scope and I recognize that the dominance of white men within the discipline, and higher education more widely, reflects gender and racial inequality more generally. This causes structural problems and micro- aggressions for students and staff from other backgrounds and impoverishes the knowledge we create.1 Chapter themes, style and content are derived from my own national and inter- national lectures and publications on religion (sociological and anthropological) during the last 20 years, a comprehensive analysis of sociology of religion programmes at uni- versities worldwide, a recent review of texts used for teaching the sociology of religion and detailed, constructive feedback from anonymous peer reviewers. The theories included here, like any theory, are open to revision. A critical reading of theory, and any evidence that underpins it, is necessary and forms an important part of academic work. Criticality is a task and skill expected of scholars and students in any field. Right now, that is more important than ever. But how do you do it? Most students new to the field may be perplexed by their lecturers’ demands to be critical, and so I have written this book with that in mind throughout, always asking questions, pointing to potential flaws, suggesting the reader thinks more. The theory that is presented to university students on courses will be in lecture, book and journal paper form. Most new students will have never seen a ‘journal paper’. That is because academic publishing is a niche operation for academics who want to get their ideas and research read by other academics. The journal articles are long, upwards of 7,000 words, written in formal prose and in a language familiar to other academics, but not to new students. The chapters here work with material from both books and journals and the extended bibliography points readers to the source. If students decide to follow the suggestions and read from the bibliography, my advice is to try not to panic. The first time you read one of these academic journal papers it will be unfamiliar and may be confusing, but in time you will become accustomed to it. Start slowly, check new terms and ask yourself throughout: what is this paper about? What are the key points? Where is the evidence? Why does it matter? Chapters in this book relate to each other, and readers will often see cross- references. Some teachers may present an individual chapter to be read in isolation, and the book has been written to allow that to happen fairly seamlessly. My potential list of people to acknowledge became so lengthy and unwieldy that I no longer knew where to start or end. Perhaps that is the greatest feeling of thanks – I’m so lucky to have had so many research participants, students, colleagues, co-a uthors/ editors, book contributors, friends, publishers, reviewers and other professional associates who have all been so generous and so interesting, wise and often funny over the years. newgenprepdf Preface ix Word length would never permit me to list them all, and then I would await with dread the realization that I had left someone off the list. Cowardly, perhaps, but I will restrict these published thanks to those specific individuals at institutions I joined as my career developed from student to author, researcher and teacher, first at Lancaster University, then Birkbeck, University of London, University of Sussex, University of Kent and Goldsmiths, University of London. For consistent and outstanding intellec- tual and emotional support my thanks to Linda Woodhead, Hiroko Kawanami, Simon Coleman, Gordon Lynch, Jeremy Carrette, Adam Dinham, Bev Skeggs, David Oswell, Vikki Bell and Dan Nyland. Finally, this book would never have been written had Routledge Commissioning Editor Emily Briggs not approached me initially and then supported my conviction that it should be transparently assertive with a widening, de-c olonizing agenda. Undoubtedly, there is more work to be done and I look forward to readers’ critiques and suggestions. I am grateful to her, Lakshita Joshi, Jane Robson, and all colleagues at Routledge for their professional expertise. I am also grateful to Alex Peters-Day for detailed editorial assistance and advice, and to Dr Kim Harding and Dr Danny Zschomler for providing additional literature reviews and analysis on topics of politics, disability and secular supernatural. Any errors or omissions that remain are wholly my responsibility. Abby Day Goldsmiths, University of London August 2020 Note 1 For a review of practical steps being taken in universities, see Abby Day, Lois Lee, David Thomas and James Spickard (eds), Doing Diversity in Academia: Practices and Pitfalls. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
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