Introduction: Communities Reimagining Sharedness in Belief and Practice

In this introduction, we bring together diverse anthropological considerations of community, belonging, and belief to argue for a reconsideration of the notion of "sharedness" that often underlies these concepts. Scholars have long critiqued the use of "community" for its broad a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Religion and society
Subtitles:"Special Section: Reimagining Sharedness"
Authors: Hillewaert, Sarah (Author) ; Tetreault, Chantal (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Berghahn 2021
In: Religion and society
Further subjects:B Belief
B Discourse
B Spirituality
B Practice
B Purpose
B Semiotics
B sharedness
B Community
Online Access: Presumably Free Access
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Summary:In this introduction, we bring together diverse anthropological considerations of community, belonging, and belief to argue for a reconsideration of the notion of "sharedness" that often underlies these concepts. Scholars have long critiqued the use of "community" for its broad application and vagueness, and most now recognize communities to be newly emerging rather than pre-existing. Despite this critical approach to scholarly uses of "community", forms of unity often continue to be viewed as undergirded by a seemingly more self-evident idea of sharedness, in practice, belief or purpose. In this special section, we question this self-evidency to focus on how sharedness itself needs to be discursively and semiotically co-constructed and fostered by people who imagine themselves as belonging to communities of apparent mixed beliefs and practices. We propose that a focus on discourse and semiosis can provide insights into the innovative ways in which individuals negotiate, co-construct, and enact sharedness.
ISSN:2150-9301
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion and society
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3167/arrs.2021.120110