Discursive Study of Religion: From States of the Mind to Communication and Action

Abstract

This article addresses the predicament of the academic study of religions and directs the debate into more fruitful fields of research. After a brief account of the most important problems-identified as the "crisis of representation", the "situated observer", and the "dilemma of essentialism and relativism"-I argue that, in order to cope with these afflictions, we should scrutinize religions as systems of communication and action and not as systems of (unverifiable) belief. Not inner states of the mind or speculations about the transcendent are our issue, but the analysis of publicly communicated constructions. The term "fields of discourse" is introduced to denote both the coherence of these cultural arenas and the "recursive" involvement of scholars who are themselves actors in them. As a meta-theoretical instrument, the ideal type of "discourse" makes visible multiple perspectives on religious phenomena and-although the analysis' contingency and ethnocentricity is acknowledged-allows for the description of long-lasting traditions.

“‘Need a Minister? How About Your Brother?’: The Universal Life Church between Religion and Non-Religion”

“…Another day, another place, another interviewer: another self-identification. Terms like religion, spirituality, secularism, and non-religion are discursive, relational constructions contingently articulated in particular locations at specific times for particular purposes (Swatos, 2003: 50;von Stuckrad, 2003;Knott, 2010;von Stuckrad, 2010;Day, 2011;Day, Vincett, & Cotter, 2013;Knott, 2013;von Stuckrad, 2013;Huss, 2014). For this reason, it is helpful to examine my "non-religious" subjects' self-articulations as demarcating a specific positionality within a particular "religion-related field" (Quack, 2014).…”

The In/Visibility of Mothering Against the Norm in Francophone Contexts: Private and Public Discourses in the Mediation of “Natural Parenting”

“…Leaving aside debates about defining "religion," which is beyond the scope of this article, it is suffice to say that the heuristic and encompassing comprehension of "religion" used here is influenced by the "family resemblance" analysis (Saler, 1999) and by the "polyfocal approach" to religion proposed by scholars like Kocku von Stuckrad (2003, calling for a "communicative turn" in a "discursive study of religions" whose focus should be on "two components … of crucial importance: communication and action" (2003, p. 263; italics in original), or, in other words, discourses and practices. This apprehension of the online mediation of natural parenting through terminology and concepts normally applied to religious practice is in turn informed by scholarship that considers practices and objects of popular and material culture that would not be obviously defined as "religious."…”

Western esotericism: Towards an integrative model of interpretation

“…If we consider sociological research into modern religious identities, we will no longer refer to a closed religious identity in the twentieth century that follows the rule 'one persondone religion'. My thesis is that this crossover is not limited to the modern age, even if the 20 On my understanding of a 'discursive study of religion' see von Stuckrad (2003c). The difference between a 'transfer of ideas' and a 'discursive transfer' is that a discursive transfer also conceptualises the material realisation of ideas in a society.…”