Making sense of the study of spirituality: late modernity on trial

In this article I offer a meta-theoretical mapping of spirituality studies and its many controversies. I begin by distinguishing between two projects that together constitute the field: the study for and the study of spirituality. I argue a good deal of the confusion surrounding ‘spirituality’ is th...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Watts, Galen (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Routledge [2020]
In: Religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 50, Issue: 4, Pages: 590-614
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Spirituality / Science of Religion / History 1960-2020
IxTheo Classification:AA Study of religion
AG Religious life; material religion
AZ New religious movements
Further subjects:B Spirituality
B Romanticism
B Late Modernity
B Social Theory
B theory and method
Online Access: Volltext (Resolving-System)
Description
Summary:In this article I offer a meta-theoretical mapping of spirituality studies and its many controversies. I begin by distinguishing between two projects that together constitute the field: the study for and the study of spirituality. I argue a good deal of the confusion surrounding ‘spirituality’ is the result of scholars failing to make this distinction. Next, I outline the few areas of agreement within the study of spirituality in order to illuminate what I consider the issue that defines the field: the merits and shortcomings of late modernity. By late modernity I mean the current era, whose origins can be traced roughly to the 1960s. I then offer a meta-theoretical analysis of the social-cum-political theoretical frameworks commonly used to study spirituality, delineating them according to their assessments of the contemporary epoch. I contend this is a useful and much-needed means of dispelling some of the fuzziness that characterizes the field.
ISSN:1096-1151
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1080/0048721X.2020.1758229