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Saisir les religions en sociologue

Saisir les religions en sociologue

Enjeux et méthodes

Edited by Gabrielle Angey, Yannick Fer, Juliette Galonnier

Sociétés, espaces, temps


Approaching Religions Sociologically
Issues and Methods

This book reveals how the sociological analysis of religion is carried out in practice. Rather than considering religion as an elusive object, it approaches it through the social relations within which it is embedded and which it illuminates in return. The eleven chapters take readers behind the scenes of sociologists' work, describing the debates that shape their understanding of religion, as well as the dilemmas they face when negotiating their relationship to the subject, entering (or exiting) the field, and interacting with the people who fund their research. In this book, we encounter Christian coaches, Muslim entrepreneurs, Catholic believers indifferent to the Church's marriage norms, and top athletes living like monks. We discuss budgets in the living rooms of Muslim women and religion in the offices of central bankers. We discover that sociological analysis requires constant reflexivity, which involves deconstructing religious assumptions that sometimes arise during the investigation but also seeking out religious dimensions where we least expect them. By the end of the journey, the heuristic value of religious facts for understanding society becomes evident.