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List of contents
Introduction: Non-Religion, Non-Religions, Non-Religious
1. The Contemporary Non-religious Landscape in the UK and Beyond
2. Critical Religion, Critical Non-Religion
3. Approaching Non-Religion: Edinburgh, the Southside, and the Religion-Related Field
4. Multiple Identifications
5. Discursive Entanglements
6. Local Particularity
7. The Power of Indifference
8. Conclusion: There is No Data for Non-Religion
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Christopher R. Cotter is a Staff Tutor in Sociology and Religious Studies at the Open University, UK.
Summary
This book acts as a bridge between the critical study of ‘religion’ and empirical studies of ‘religion in the real world’. Chris Cotter presents a concise and up-to-date critical survey of research on non-religion in the UK and beyond, before presenting the results of extensive research in Edinburgh’s Southside which blurs the boundary between ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’. In doing so, Cotter demonstrates that these are dynamic subject positions, and phenomena can occupy both at the same time, or neither, depending on who is doing the positioning, and what issues are at stake.
This book details an approach that avoids constructing ‘religion’ as in some way unique, whilst also fully incorporating ‘non-religious’ subject positions into religious studies. It provides a rich engagement with a wide variety of theoretical material, rooted in empirical data, which will be essential reading for those interested in critical, sociological and anthropological study of the contemporary non-/religious landscape.
