Engler Steven - The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion

This is the first comprehensive survey in English of research methods in the field of religious studies. It is designed to enable non-specialists and students at upper undergraduate and graduate levels to understand the variety of research methods used in the field. The aim is to create awareness of the relevant methods currently available and to stimulate an active interest in exploring unfamiliar methods, encouraging their use in research and enabling students and scholars to evaluate academic work with reference to methodological issues. A distinguished team of contributors cover a broad spectrum of topics, from research ethics, hermeneutics and interviewing, to Internet research and video-analysis. Each chapter covers practical issues and challenges, the theoretical basis of the respective method, and the way it has been used in religious studies (illustrated by case studies).

Michael Stausberg is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen, Norway. He is author of Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters, editor of Contemporary Theories of Religion and European editor of the journal Religion.

Steven Engler is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Mount Royal University, Canada. He is a co-editor of Historicizing Tradition in the Study of Religion and North American editor of the journal Religion.

Edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler

First published in 2011

by Routledge

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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2011 Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors, their contributions

The right of the editor to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The Routledge handbook of research methods in the study of religion /
edited by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. ReligionMethodology. I. Stausberg, Michael. II. Engler, Steven.

III. Title: Handbook of research methods in the study of religion.

BL41.R686 2011

200.72dc23

2011021788

ISBN: 9780415559201 (hbk)

Typeset in Bembo

by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

PART II

Figures

Plates

jimi adams is Assistant Professor, School of Social and Family Dynamics, Arizona State University, USA. His main areas of work are social networks and the diffusion of ideas/diseases. His work has been published in Social Networks; Field Methods; Demographic Research and the Handbook of Medical Sociology.

Justin L. Barrett is Thrive Chair of Applied Developmental Psychology and Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, and Research Associate of the University of Oxford's Centre for Anthropology and Mind. He works in the areas of cognitive anthropology, cognitive science of religion, psychology of religion, and cognitive, religious and character development. Main publications include Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (2004); Cognitive Science, Religion, & Theology (2011) and Born Believers (2011). He is book review editor of the Journal of Cognition & Culture, a consulting editor of Psychology of Religion & Spirituality and an editorial board member of Religion, Brain, and Behavior.

Frederick Bird is Research Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. He is also a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Concordia University in Montral, Qubec, Canada, where he was a professor in the Department of Religion and held a Concordia University Research Chair in Comparative Ethics. His publications include Voices from the Voluntary Sector: perspectives on leadership challenges (co-edited with Frances Westley, 2010); Just Business: practices in a diverse and developing world (co-edited with Manuel Velasquez, 2006); International Business and the Dilemmas of Development (co-edited with Emmanuel Raufflet and Joseph Smucker, 2005); International Businesses and the Challenges of Poverty in the Developing World (co-edited with Stewart W. Herman, 2004); Ritual and Ethnic Identity: a comparative study of liturgical ritual in synagogues (co-authored with Jack N. Lightstone et al., 1996). For a number of years he chaired the university's Human Research Ethics Committee.

Kendal C. Boyd is Associate Professor of Psychology at Loma Linda University, USA. His research areas include medically unexplained symptoms, chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, sports fan dynamics, the psychology of religion, and statistics/methodology. In addition to his dissertation being a Monte Carlo study on the number of factors criteria in exploratory factor analysis, he has published factor analytic studies in the area of medically unexplained symptoms. He is a clinical psychologist who also holds an MA in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He recently authored a chapter in the edited volume A Christian Worldview and Mental Health: Adventist perspectives.

Anna Davidsson Bremborg (PhD Lund University, Sweden), is a sociologist of religion. Her main areas of research are death studies and pilgrimages. She has published two books: Yrke: begravningsentreprenr [Occupation: funeral director] (2002) and Pilgrimsvandring p svenska [Pilgrimages, the Swedish way] (2010). She has published articles in several edited books and in journals such as the Journal of Empirical Theology, Mortality and Social Compass.

Richard M. Carp is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Academics at St. Mary's College of California. He works in the interstices of the academic study of religion, performance, semiotics, anthropology, and visual art and design, as well as theory and method of interdisciplinarity. He is the director and editor of The Image Bank for Teaching World Religion (1992). He has published in various edited volumes and journals including