El candidato del PRI: Francisco Labastida Ochoa

Wade Clark Roof

Chapter summary

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Introduction

Teaching courses in the sociology of American religion, I am often approached by students who say something like, ‘I have an interesting topic for my paper in your class but I don’t know how to go about researching it. Can you help me?’ The gap between these two—an interesting topic and an appropriate research design—is not uncommon for students in religious studies. Partly this is because the study of religion lacks a distinct methodological approach of its own and borrows methods and logics of study from various disciplines within the humanities and social sciences, and increasingly from the evolutionary-cognitive sciences, but also the modern study of religion, as a fi eld liberated from the confi nes of theological refl ection, emerged as an intellectual hybrid with diverse roots in the history of phenomenology, philosophy and textual studies on the one hand, and anthropology,

sociology and psychology on the other hand. There is no singular, widely accepted paradigm of study.

In addition, the phenomenon we study is elusive, hard to pin down and defi es easy defi ni-tion. To add to the complexity, ‘religion’ in the context of people’s lives has both fi rst-order and second-order meanings. There are the interpretive frames of religious believers them-selves, which are often the object of study as within, say, ethnography. However, scholars look at the same phenomena and apply their own conceptual schemes and theories independently of, yet sometimes infl uenced by, how the participants describe their own worlds. Disputes over scholarly interpretations and analytic approaches are common, often leaving students confused as to what it is we really know about religion. As Willi Braun says:

divergent, confl ictual, even contradictory incantations of ‘religion’ are not only possible but vigorously alive side-by-side in hundreds of university religion depart-ments whose knowledge is relayed for scholarly and popular consumption by an astonishing volume of publications [. . .] The fi eld of religious studies is a bewildering jungle.

(Braun 2000: 5) This is true up to a point, but the situation Braun describes also makes for debate in the study of religion and forces researchers to think critically about fundamental issues: How does one go about setting up a research project? How is religion to be conceptualized and analyzed?

What about logics and modes of analysis, and how these relate to particular methods of research? What protocols does one follow in carrying out the research? Can one be fl exible in research, or must one follow the established rules at all costs? All these are questions for which answers are neither obvious nor straightforward; the more we probe the questions the more we realize how complex, and sometimes controversial, they can be. All the questions also bear upon considerations of research design , that is, the overall plan or strategy for achieving the aim(s) of a particular inquiry, which is to be distinguished from the broader topic of methodology , which refl ects on the adequacy of research designs and the validity of research fi ndings from the perspective of logic and philosophy of science.

Here our concern is with research design, with specifi c approaches and procedures for conducting an investigation. Much attention is given to research methods—tools of sorts—

for selecting, collecting, classifying and analyzing observations and other types of informa-tion. Researchers assume responsibility for the choice of methods and their use in interpreting and representing fi ndings from research. Generally, these choices should refl ect the authen-ticity and trustworthiness of the researcher as well as meet the tests of inter-subjectivity, as Riis (2009: 239) emphasizes. The fi rst two are fairly straightforward as personal virtues, the second implies that among two or more researchers using the same data, methods and modes of analysis, there should be a good deal of concurrence as to the fi ndings. While there is always some room for differences in interpretation, as a principle, inter-subjective agreement is good in that it pushes in the direction of achieving greater accuracy.

As all these points suggest, research has a very public face: normally we conduct our inves-tigations within, and in expectation of, scrutiny by a community of researchers—professional and academic societies in particular—with widely shared understandings about acceptable research procedures. Journal publications are typically peer reviewed and must meet academic standards relating to the proper fi t of concepts and evidence and logic of argumentation. At times this involves ruling out alternative explanations and defense of a particular argument, but always there are protocols by which the procedures are evaluated. Even with exploratory

research which, as the term implies, is less strict, investigation involves a measure of discipline and adherence to principles of research. Often the latter is a fi rst step leading to a more comprehensive and frequently more complex research strategy in addressing a topic.

That word religion

Aside from exercising discipline, researchers need a probing imagination, one that pushes toward exploring new, promising leads into how and why things religious, or connected to the religious, hang together. Research builds upon initial questions or hunches about such connections, often expands into hypotheses in a more formal sense, but almost always becomes more involved or complicated as one begins to think about the possible complexities. Just as the social critic C. Wright Mills (1959) once spoke of a ‘sociological imagination’ as enabling a better understanding of the social order and of one’s location within it, similarly a ‘religious imagination’ helps in grasping this complex thing called religion, so deeply and variously embedded in culture in ways both visible and invisible, obvious and not so obvious. Moreover, such imagination must extend beyond simply a grasp of the religious phenomenon itself to also prod refl ection more generally about how a particular researcher or team of researchers in a particular time and place, the people who are researched either directly or indirectly, and the process of research are all closely intertwined.

A critical imagination is essential for several reasons. One is that the term ‘religion’ encom-passes a complex set of forms: institutions, traditions, new movements, sacred texts, religious nationalism, alternative spiritual practices and so forth. Each form requires its own conceptu-alization and logic of research in relation to a particular social context. Added to this is the challenge of distinguishing between the ‘religious’ and the ‘nonreligious’ in the contempo-rary world. With rampant consumption and commodifi cation of religious themes—i.e. ways in which beliefs, myths, ethical teachings and practices are drawn into commercial culture—

distinguishing between the two becomes even more diffi cult and calls for especially creative conceptualizing. This is particularly evident in the case of movements addressing questions of spirituality, recovery, journey and personal meaning, all of which draw heavily from identity-affi rming psychological languages.

Further, in the modern context, researchers have to be sensitive to privatizing and de-privatizing trends in religion (Casanova 1994). Individual belief and spirituality illustrate the fi rst and resurgent fundamentalism the second. Overall, researchers must understand that religious traditions are reinvented, constantly changing, and that people exercise considerable choice in formulating their own religious worlds, likely far more so today than in the past.

‘Lived religion’ is far different from that normatively defi ned by religious authorities.

Bourdieu’s (1977: chapter 1 ) emphasis on ‘strategic practices’ and Swidler’s (1986) cultural

‘tool kit’ metaphor both signal this more open, fl uid situation of lived religious life. For example, according to a recent national poll, roughly a fourth of Americans say they believe in reincarnation and/or practice yoga, and those who do tend to be politically liberal—

evidence of a global diffusion of religious and spiritual infl uences and also a reconfi guring of religion and politics (Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2009). Pointing to the complexities of religious meaning systems, religious studies scholar Robert Orsi (1997: 7) emphasizes that scholars should pay more attention to the ‘hermeneutics of hybridity’, which he describes as ‘how particular people, in particular places and times, live in, with, through, and against the religious idioms, including (often enough) those not explicitly their own’.

Conceptualizing religion as a particular form, especially in the contemporary world, precedes the completed formulation of a research design. With historical study of religion, it

is tempting to impose our own, temporally bound views on its forms and its meaning as if these fi t in other times and places. Even in studying an ancient Hindu text or medieval Christian practices, there are analogous complications. Whether in philological-linguistic studies or analysis of historical ritual as Hall points out, there are interpretive pitfalls: idealism, objectifi cation, and ideology, to name the three he mentions (Hall 1991: 95–98). Idealism leads to over-interpreting history, assuming that a particular ideal or cultural motif is working out over time in a particular direction; objectifi cation implies over-interpretation of reality or presuming it to be more ordered than perhaps it is; and ideology suggests an interpretation justifi ed by a particular set of ideas and/or interests on the part of the interpreter or of a prevailing school of interpretation. In each instance what this means for the study of religion is that some potential bias can be introduced to the interpretation by the researcher. As Jonathan Z. Smith (1978) likes to say, a ‘map is not territory’, underscoring the point that maps, or conceptual schemes, point always to religious realities in some particular form or manifestation. Researchers need to be cognizant of the fact that any conceptual framework privileges some aspects and expressions of religion and not others, and thus in approaching a research topic, an open, inquiring mind is essential.

A research project

Now, we turn to a specifi c research project, one an undergraduate major in religious studies at my university is conducting. It provides a springboard for discussing many aspects of research design. The project focuses on the religiosity of college students born of interfaith parents or where one parent claims to be religious and the other not, and how they are adapting religiously, or non-religiously, to these circumstances. Specifi cally, she is interested in the meaning-making process of students, of how in these situations they selectively create their own beliefs and practices, i.e. if they are religious, how so and why, and if not religious, in what sense not and why. As to the particular form of religion she wants to explore, it is the contemporary mixing and matching of themes drawn from religious traditions and current discussions of spirituality. She is upfront about why this latter type of religious formation is of interest: her mother is a practicing Sikh-American but who also reads mystical literature from various faith traditions; her father claims to be ‘non-religious’ but acknowledges that his grandparents were Norwegian Lutherans. Recognizing the complexity of her family situa-tion, she realizes that her study requires careful attention to issues of religious identity and practice, and particularly so with children of immigrants seeking to hold on to aspects of their culture of origin while integrating into a new, highly pluralist society such as the United States. She is drawn to sociological analysis of religion but wants to combine it with historical specifi city of the faith groups. Hers is a cross-sectional research design, that is, one that looks at patterns among factors that she has identifi ed as infl uencing the religious outcomes of the students based upon analysis at one point in time. A researcher draws inferences about the magnitude of infl uences and presumed trends from comparison of the factors within that single frame. This differs from longitudinal design since, as the latter suggests, it involves research at more than one point in time and is a means of identifying and measuring more precisely trends over a designated time span.

Units of analysis

Perhaps the fi rst, and most obvious, issue in research design that surfaces in this project is the unit of analysis. This has to do with level of conceptualization, which in this instance is that

of individuals—their identity as religious or nonreligious, and how so and in what ways. Unit of analysis shapes how we think of the properties that are forefronted in the research, i.e. in this instance personal beliefs and practices primarily, yet also the students’ affi liations with religious groups, ethical commitments and worldviews. From this follows an interpretive logic framed for examining these basic religious characteristics, with attention to connections among them and how these vary by ethnic and religious tradition, family and background features, e.g. level of education, social class, and racial and ethnic identity.

However, the study of students’ religious commitment is more complex than it might at fi rst appear, a situation not all that uncommon in other research projects where the individual is the major unit of analysis. The religious infl uence of groups and cultural inheritance has an impact upon individuals, even among those who claim to be secular and who do not recog-nize such subtle infl uences. This is exemplifi ed, in this project, by the researcher’s father who claims to be nonreligious but acknowledges his Norwegian Lutheran background. One thinks as well of non-observant Jews and cultural Catholics, neither highly involved in a synagogue or church but who identify communally, some quite strongly, with their ethnic and/or religious heritages. Specifying the range and types of religious infl uences in today’s world is challenging, particularly among those with limited outward appearance of being religious. In addition to the historical communities formed by religious traditions such as Norwegian Lutheran there are many new types of communities, some explicitly religious, others far less so, to which people belong. Communities emerging out of popular religious movements and a wide array of small sharing and seeker-oriented groups, both within and outside of organized religion, are prevalent around the world. These newer communities are important to the study of religion. Media and technology today, too, have a huge infl uence on religious and spiritual styles; the rise of Internet-driven special-purpose groups which draw selectively upon religious symbols, ethics and teachings are very successful in mobi-lizing large constituencies around a variety of compelling concerns: e.g. the global environ-mentalist, HIV/AIDS, and pro-life and pro-choice movements. The role of communal belonging in both traditional faith groups and the newer movements is critical to under-standing types of individual religious loyalty.

Dimensions of religious commitment

The discussion of communities and their infl uences leads to broader attention to the various dimensions of religious commitment. Whether analyzing religious traditions or individual styles of faith and spirituality, there are major components such as ritual, myth, doctrine, experi-ence, ethics, community and knowledge (see Smart 1999). For an earlier generation of scholars, sorting out these various components was essential to advancing a broad, well-rounded picture of religion and necessary for moving religious study beyond a theological or confessional mode to a more descriptive and comparative mode of analysis. Later on, psychologists and sociologists did much the same by looking at individuals and profi ling patterns of commitment, and by identifying how clusters of dimensions hang together within and across faith traditions, and as correlated to people’s life-situations. The empirical research of Rodney Stark and Charles Y.

Glock (Stark and Glock 1968; see related research studies described in Roof 1979) was infl uen-tial in describing these various types of religious dimensions within the American context.

Our student project here makes use of the research on dimensionality: the plan is to ask students about their religious beliefs, experiences, practices, values and knowledge of, and appreciation for, sacred texts using items that were used by earlier researchers. More than just looking at these substantive dimensions, the researcher asks a battery of questions exploring

their nuances more deeply. At one level, there are the basic dimensions such as ritual, doctrine, myth, experience, practice and so forth, but each of these can also be examined on another grid with regard to selected features, depending upon their appropriateness pertaining to content, intensity of loyalty, centrality and frequency (see Verbit 1970). Attention to these sub-dimensions helps in capturing still greater insight into individual and group religious life.

For example, some believers—often evangelical Christians—know fairly well the content of what they believe, hold intensely to their convictions and regard their personal relationship with God as central in their lives; however, seeing themselves as ‘Jesus and me’ believers, they do not feel it necessary to participate actively within a religious community. Knowing this, a researcher analyzing these believers would likely focus more on personal belief and its subjec-tive meaning than on church attendance, which is an associational type of measure of reli-gious commitment. Focus on belief and its centrality in this instance makes for greater precision as to what defi nes religiosity for this constituency. For scholarly reasons, too, it is important to single out particular emphases in religious commitment within traditions and in relation to social circumstances. Early 20th-century social theorists are remembered for their strong, forceful arguments about religion’s role in society precisely because they defi ned which aspects of religion were most central and consequential, Durkheimians privileging ritual and its social functions, and Weberians stressing the autonomous infl uence of beliefs, ideas and ethical teachings, to cite two major historical schools of interpretation.

Logics and approaches

As already noted, research design refers to the overall plan of a project, a blueprint for linking the many parts in a logical process of investigation. It is guided fi rst and foremost by the ques-tion asked in the research. For the student project this is ‘How and in what ways were the students’ religious (or nonreligious) views and practices infl uenced by growing up in

As already noted, research design refers to the overall plan of a project, a blueprint for linking the many parts in a logical process of investigation. It is guided fi rst and foremost by the ques-tion asked in the research. For the student project this is ‘How and in what ways were the students’ religious (or nonreligious) views and practices infl uenced by growing up in