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An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion

What is the sociology of religion? What are its particular concerns, dominant themes and defining methodologies? Where did it begin, and how has it evolved? This interview with Grace Davie, the first in our BSA SOCREL series, introduces this important and historically influential approach to the study of religion.

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Grace Davie

David G. Robertson

About this episode

What is the sociology of religion? What are its particular concerns, dominant themes and defining methodologies? Where did it begin, and how has it evolved? This interview with Grace Davie introduces this important and historically influential approach to the study of religion.

In conversation with David G Robertson, Professor Davie – herself a highly respected theorist of religious change – discuss the four tasks of the sociology of religion; some early sociologists and their relationship to the social changes of their time; modernity, secularisation and a more recent social shift, the Internet; and how Europe may be the exception in the modern world, rather than the model by which all other states will necessarily proceed. They conclude by reminding listeners that we must always keep our theories foremost in our thinking, because they are as socially and historically contextual as the data we use them to interpret.

Consider next: The Changing Nature of Religion, or our podcasts on Emile Durkheim, Claude Levi-Strauss, Religion, Neoliberalism and Consumer Culture, Marxist Approaches, Bricolage and more…

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Responses to this episode
October 2, 2016

From Secularisation to Religious Diversity: Understanding Religion in Europe

It may be said that secularisation has made the West religiously illiterate, in that it struggles to accommodate those who do not espouse its secular values, particularly the separation of religion from the state (la laïcité).In her interview with the RSP, Grace Davie provides a survey of the history of the discipline of sociology in the study of religion, and considers the manner in which it has developed in British universities, in contrast to European models.
September 29, 2016

Whither the Sociology of Religion?

I cannot help but think that the field’s continued reliance on these classical thinkers works to limit the possibilities for analysis to those concerns raised by such figures even in the midst of increased calls for non-Western scholarly interlocutors and more diverse research sites.Grace Davie’s discussion of the sociology of religion provides a comprehensive overview of the field. She offers insights garnered from her own eminent career within British sociology of religion and speaks ...

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