APPROACHES TO RELIGION

brage.bibsys.no

The general theory and methodology offered by Margaret Archer under the name of "the morphogenetic approach" represents the major developments within critical realist social theory. Archer combines the critical realist ontology of stratified reality and complex causality with emergence-and interest theory in an innovative framework for socialscientific analysis. By taking this framework to the sociology of religion this thesis sheds light on familiar topics from a novel angle. The morphogenetic approach has as its key feature an analytically dualistic view of structure and agency. A stratified model of social agency highlights how the causal potential of humans must be understood in relation to in what respect they are acting: As individual, organised collectivity or within a role structure. Social structures are granted objective influence on interaction by shaping action contexts. By differentiating these levels in sociological explanation Archer maintains that the interplay of causal influences between structure and agency can be apprehended. Morphogenetic analyses trace historical trajectories of such interplays.

Paedagogia Christiana

Religiosity is one of the most challenging theoretical categories in social sciences. How it is grasped and presented is strongly related to social ontology which determines the perspective for studying religion in society. In this article, I present two different theoretical approaches to religiosity. First framed by Rational Choice Theory was inspired by Adam Smith and later developed especially by American sociologists of religion. The second vision of religiosity is built upon Critical Realism and elaborated by Roy Bhaskar and later developed especially by Margaret Archer. I present how from such a perspective religiosity could be defined and presented. My intention is to highlight that realist understanding of religiosity is especially promising for studying religious socialisation. In realist perspective, religiosity represents dynamic category essentially related to human subjectivity and reflexivity.

Integrative psychological & behavioral science, 2018

Sociocultural psychology can contribute to the understanding of religion, as it examines the dynamics by which the social and cultural world creates the conditions for the lives of unique people. This approach focuses especially on semiotic dynamics, by which religion can both guide practices and sense-making, but also become an object of shared representations. Drawing on a series of past studies, I first adopt an ontogenetic perspective, to explore early development into a sociocultural environment in which religion is present, and then to address young adults' religious bricolage. I especially show people's creativity in using various symbolic resources, linked to religious elements or not. Second, I consider more sociogenetic dynamics: boundary making processes taking place in intergroup dynamics. This leads me, third, to consider the resonances between social discourses on religion and more subjective experiences: I especially show how public discourses may create confu...

Asian Journal of Social Sciences and Legal Studies, 2022

The prime purpose of this article is to study religion from different paradigms or perspectives from a sociological viewpoint. Religion is defined as a social institution while economic reality, ideological support, and everyday interactions of people are also undertaken as core concepts. In fact, this article is an overview of the religion of three theoretical perspectives of sociology focusing on the work of Emile Durkheim, Robert K. Merton (the functionalist), Karl Marx, Max Weber, Friedrich Engels (the conflict), and Peter Berger (the interactionist). A brief discussion of each perspective is articulated clearly, followed by secondary sources including published books, book sections, blogs, research articles, and WebPages highlighting the foundations of the relevant theory. Afterward, the author reviews the discourses of the theorists regarding religion with its application to human society. Finally, the article provides a summary of these perspectives continuing to develop the ...

Department of Sociology Working Papers, Singapore: National University of Singapore 85: 1–33, 1987

A condensed version of the main points of this paper can be found on pages 14-19 of my book "Temiar Religion, 1964-2012". As a contribution to the study of religion, the paper discusses two different sets of questions: (1) Why do religions differ, and how do they function? (2) Why are people religious, and what are people up to when they engage in religious actions? More generally, the paper presents a semi-formal account of a theory of modes of coherence that links the structuring of Self/Other relations at the personal level to the character of politically maintained cultural regimes at the societal level. Four basic modes of coherence are recognised (the Transcendental, the Immanent, the Dialectical and the "Zen"), and the political consequences of each are explored in relation to the history, theology, mythology and social-interactional setting of a variety of religious traditions.

in Culture and Politics: Identity and Conflict in a Multicultural World. (ed. Pinxten, R. ea.), 2004

In the first chapter of this book a new model for thinking about identity and culture was developed as an answer to earlier, problematic uses of these concepts in the human sciences as well as in politics. The term 'identity' is claimed as a scientific term and the model can simultaneously be seen as an instrument that allows us to take at least one step out of the limited culturalist and sociologist perspectives and as a means to direct research and build new theories. Many terms are currently being discussed and re-evaluated in the human sciences; 'identity,' 'religion,' 'culture,' 'society' are but a few of them. In this article I will direct my attention to religious studies as a site, where one can witness intense discussion on the appropriateness of the term 'religion' as a scientific concept, as well as intense activity in developing alternative perspectives that go beyond the limited religion sui generis or religionist versus reductionist approaches. An analysis of these discussions and of the search for alternative kinds of religious studies is undertaken. The purpose is not so much to solve the problems within this discipline, as to see whether lessons can be drawn more generally for evaluating human scientific terms and for developing a perspective on 'us, human beings' outside such limited and limiting culturalist or religionist and sociologist approaches. Two authors will figure prominently in this exercise, their work and discussions being in part the data analysed, and in part -at least in the case of Cantwell Smith -the basis for a broader historical exercise and a possible starting point for a renewed thinking about 'us, human beings'.

Encyclopedia, 2021

The new sociology of religion differs from the classical and mainstream sociology, which was in force until the end of the last century, in that it no longer considers religion only as an independent variable, but places it together with other dependent variables, so that it becomes possible to investigate new themes, especially those that do not consider religious involvement—from atheism to the phenomenon of ‘nones’ (non-believers and non-practicing), from spirituality to forms of para-religions and quasi-religions and the varied set of multiple religions.

One hundred years of psychology of religion: Issues …, 2003

International Sociology Review of Books 26(5) 675–684, 2011

In almost 700 pages, The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion attempts an all-encompassing approach to the study of religion in modern societies. This ambitious effort was edited by Bryan S Turner, an experienced scholar in the field, who also wrote the introduction and a concluding chapter. The book has an interdisciplinary focus and a historic-comparative viewpoint inspired by Weber. It is divided into 29 chapters, organized in seven well-defined sections and includes a very useful index at the end.