Materiality and the Study of Religion ─ The Stuff of the Sacred

Material culture has emerged over the last decade as a significant theoretical concern for the study of religion. This book contributes to and evaluates this material turn, presenting 12 chapters of new empirical research and theoretical reflection. The contributors address three key themes: how objects become or cease to be religious; how objects are used in contests over access to public space and resources; and how religion is embodied and performed by individuals in their everyday lives. Using material culture as a lens through which to explore the ongoing transformations of symbols and practices in lived religion today, the contributors present insights from a broad range of new research projects and theoretical approaches. Chapters discuss the significance of the materiality of religion across different religious traditions and diverse geographical regions; close attention is paid to gender, age, ethnicity and class, and to the timely and politically significant research fields of ’non-religion’, religious integration and political activism. This book contributes to this rapidly-growing field of study by gathering the latest research from some of the leading international scholars of material religion and focusing closely (but not exclusively) on the context of religion in Britain.

Tim Hutchings is a postdoctoral research fellow at Durham University. His research interests focus on the sociological and ethnographic study of digital religion, including online communities and digital publishing, and he has also conducted research on death studies, the digital humanities and festival culture. His publications include articles in The Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, Australian Journal of Communication and Information, Communication and Society, and chapters in the edited volumes Religion, Media and Social Change (ed. Kennet Granholm, 2014), Christianity in the Modern World (ed. Giselle Vincett,2014), Emotions and Religious Dynamics (ed. Douglas Davies, 2014) and Digital Religion (ed. Heidi Campbell, 2012). He is the Editor of the Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture. Joanne McKenzie is a PhD student at Durham University, studying how evangelical Christian identity is shaped by social class. Her research includes historical analysis of the development of evangelical relationship to class, and ethnographic studies of evangelical churches that are seeking to establish congregations among the urban poor and working classes.