Introduction: Belief as Cultural Performance

Although the concept of belief has become a focus of critical discussion in other disciplines, sociologists of religion have tended to assume that belief is a universal phenomenon, structured around cognitive propositions which can be made explicit in the context of research surveys and interviews T...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Day, Abby 1956- (Author) ; Lynch, Gordon 1968- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Carfax Publ. [2013]
In: Journal of contemporary religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 28, Issue: 2, Pages: 199-206
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:Although the concept of belief has become a focus of critical discussion in other disciplines, sociologists of religion have tended to assume that belief is a universal phenomenon, structured around cognitive propositions which can be made explicit in the context of research surveys and interviews The articles in this special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion explore belief in the lives of young people in different religious, cultural, and national contexts to suggest more complex ways in which belief might be conceptualised and researched. While the ‘authenticity' of belief is a significant value for young people across these cases, the authors show how belief can, in different contexts, be a marker of identity, an expression of socially significant relationships or an organising centre for the lives of individuals and groups. Belief can also be understood as the performance of embodied practices shaped by one's spatial and cultural environment. In this wider context, training young people in propositional forms of belief is shown to be a particular kind of religious project, which can be unstable and have unintended consequences.
ISSN:1469-9419
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of contemporary religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2013.783315