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What Counts As Religion in Sociology?

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What Counts As Religion in Sociology? What Counts as Religion in Sociology? What Counts as Religion in Sociology? The problem of religiosity in sociological methodology Erika Willander Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in University Main Buildning, hall IX, Biskopsgatan 3, Uppsala, Friday, 26 September 2014 at 14:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Professor James A Beckford (University of Warwick ). Abstract Willander, E. 2014. What Counts as Religion in Sociology? The Problem of Religiosity in Sociological Methodology. 271 pp. Uppsala: Sociologiska institutionen. ISBN 978-91-506-2409-0. This thesis aims to contribute to the ongoing critical discussion within the sociology of reli- gion by focusing on the seldom considered perspective of methodology. As such, it consists of a theoretical part that problematizes the ways in which religion has been analyzed, and an empirical part that develops how religiosity can be approached in sociological studies. The thesis seeks, in other words, to contribute to how sociologists analyze religion, and addresses a research problem that has gained new relevance in the aftermath of criticism of the seculari- zation paradigm. In the theoretical part, the assumptions underlying the ways in which reli- gion is studied are revisited, as is the impact that these have had as faras the empirical study of religion is concerned in one of the countries often assumed to be secularized – i.e. Sweden. The empirical part of the thesis is comprised of three studies based on the latest European Value Survey, qualitative interviews and the Blogosphere on religion-related content (n=220000 blog posts). The results from these studies are used to reconsider the religious- mainstream, the “package”-like assumptions often made about affiliation, belief and practice, as well as the fact that the study of religiosity tends to be relegated to the periphery of the imagination of sociologists of religion. The thesis proposes that if we want to study religion in a lay people sensitive way we cannot continue to overlook their understandings of the sacred, the ways in which they regard their own religiosity, and the fact that their affiliation,belief and practice do not necessarily fit the expectations of established ways of analyzing religion. Keywords: sociology of religion, theory and method, religious affiliation, religious beliefs, religious practice, religious mainstream, sacred, religiosity, spirituality, secularization, Sweden Erika Willander, Department of Sociology, Box 624, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Erika Willander 2014 ISBN 978-91-506-2409-0 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-229776 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-229776) Printed by Elanders Sverige AB, 2014 To Johan, Julius and Holly Acknowledgements Sometimes in life we are given an opportunity to choose the best from two worlds. Such an opportunity was given to me some years ago when I was working as a research assistant and administrator for collecting church statis- tics at the Church of Sweden's research department. I was given this position after studying history and sociology of religion at Uppsala University. At work I remember that I quickly realized that we were asking a number of questions in our standard questionnaires that did not really make sense to the people who were supposed to answer them. Many phone calls from people feeling puzzled about how to fill in our questionnaires made me think along such lines. For sure, I thought, if people do not understand the questions in the way in which they were intended to be understood, then that must be a problem for the conclusions we make based on the answers we get. Work provided me with an opportunity to study these matters more systematically. The Church of Sweden Education, Research and Cultural Board, at this time chaired by Britas-Lennart Eriksson and convened by Associate Prof. Anne- Louise Eriksson, funded doctoral projects. I applied for one of these doctoral project grants and was very happy to hear that my application was approved for funding. The typical candidate for this grant (that very generously al- lowed for funding for the whole doctoral period) was an ordained priest who wished to pursue her or his studies in theology. To the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one who has received this grant for writing a thesis in the social sciences. This is how I got to bring two worlds together. For the project that I was about to embark on this background meant that I had the advantage of discussing my topic - what to actually make of how religion is measured - with some of the most esteemed scholars within my field. Initially, Prof. Thorleif Pettersson (Uppsala University) was very im- portant for the way which I chose to approach my research topic. Pettersson, being a member of the steering committee of the World Value Survey pro- ject, was very experienced in how to conduct large scale, cross-national sur- vey investigations. Also, from the very beginning of this project, I had the opportunity to talk about the topics I was interested in with Prof. Grace Da- vie (Exeter University). She gave me insights into what religion means in a comparative perspective and advised me never to view Sweden in isolation but as a part of a bigger picture. As a research assistant I was also asked to participate in a study intended to follow up on Prof. Paul Heelas (Erasmus University) and Prof. Linda Woodhead’s (Lancaster University) Kendal project on the growth of alternative spirituality. In conversation with Paul and Linda, complexity was added to my questions about how religion is measured. In addition to these people there were an active research milieu in Uppsala were people such as Prof. Mia Lövheim (Uppsala University) and Associate Prof. Jonas Bromander (Church of Sweden) participated. The second world - if I may use that expression - that my doctoral project gave me the opportunity to draw insights from was the Department of Soci- ology at Uppsala University. Compared with the research milieu I was par- ticipating in prior to being accepted as a doctoral student at the department of sociology, this department was much bigger. Here, too, I found that many of the researchers and my fellow doctoral students were glad to discuss all matters relating to sociology and this gave me a broader frame of reference for how topics specific to the sociology of religion might be perceived from the perspective of mainstream sociology. I am therefore grateful to all the researchers, doctoral students and undergraduate students that I have been able to talk to about my research topic. With this background, the doctoral thesis I began to work with soon proved to be about a broad topic that didn't fit the traditional format of a doctoral thesis. The problem was that I did not realize that this was the case. The person who insightfully recognized the character of what I was doing and helped me turn my scattered argumentation and diverse empirical stud- ies into a dissertation is my main supervisor, Prof. Sandra Torres (Uppsala University). Sandra has, in a brilliant way, been there for me as I tried to take on the art of writing academic English. I am honored and delighted that she has done this for me and my most sincere thanks goes out to her for this work. My doctoral project has also been supported by my two supplementary supervisors: Prof. Jørgen Straarup (Södertörn University College) and Prof. Sverker Sikström (Lund University). I'm grateful for the way in which Jørgen has shared with me his knowledge in the history and theory of our joint discipline, the sociology of religion. With Jørgen’s help several misun- derstandings of theory and factual errors were avoided. I would like to thank Sverker for helping me with the analyses in Chapter 6, which are based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA). Sverker has shared with me many of the statistical applications of LSA that he has developed and I'm very glad for all the help I have received. I am also very grateful for all support Prof. Grace Davie (Exeter Universi- ty) has given me throughout the years I worked with issues related to the sociology of religion. Grace and I met when she visited Uppsala University in 2000 and we have remained in contact about minor and major aspects of academic life (even before I started the doctoral program in sociology). She supported some of my most crucial decisions in the work with this thesis and for that I would like to express my gratitude. Moreover, words cannot ex- press how happy I am that Grace took the time to read the whole manuscript for the final seminar, providing me with some invaluable recommendations for how to revise the text into a thesis. The final seminar provided insights for how to revise the thesis thanks to the work of Philip K. Creswell who read the manuscript and acted as an opponent together with Grace. Prior to the final seminar, Prof. Anders Bäckström (Uppsala University), Prof. Curt Dahlgren (Lund University) and Associate Prof. Anders Sjöborg (Uppsala University) had read and provided insightful comments on Chapter 2 and 3 of this thesis. Even earlier than this, I have had many opportunities to discuss my work at the higher seminar in Sociology of Religion, chaired by Prof. Mia Lövheim (Uppsala University). I would like to thank the regu- lar participants of this seminar that (in alphabetical order and without titles) are: Marta Axner, Maxmilian Broberg, Anders Bäckstöm, Maria Klingen- berg, Maria Liljas, Jonas Lindberg, Evelina Lundmark,Martha Middlemiss Lé Mon, Vanja Mosbach, Oriol Poveda, Anders Sjöborg, Josephine Sundqvist, Johan Wejryd and Anneli Winell.
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