Folk Religion in Discourse and Practice
‘Folk religion’ is a contested category within the study of religions, with scholars increasingly advocating its abandonment. This paper encourages a new critical engagement with ‘folk religion’ as both a category of analysis and as a field of practice. I argue for a renewed attentiveness to the ide...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Sciendo
2013-09-01
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| Series: | Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.jef.ee/index.php/journal/article/view/116 |
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| Summary: | ‘Folk religion’ is a contested category within the study of religions, with scholars increasingly advocating its abandonment. This paper encourages a new critical engagement with ‘folk religion’ as both a category of analysis and as a field of practice. I argue for a renewed attentiveness to the ideological dimensions of categories deployed by scholars and to the relationship they bear to the field of practice they seek to signify. Firstly, I explore the discursive nature of the construction of ‘folk religion’ as a category of analysis and how its semantic loading functions to ‘pick up’ distinctive practices from the religious field. Secondly, drawing on the work of Bourdieu and Riesebrodt, I characterise the ‘folk religious field of practice’ as relational, a shifting site of competing agencies. My argument is illustrated with empirical examples drawn from ethnographic research in Romania and Moldova. |
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| ISSN: | 1736-6518 2228-0987 |