Abstract

Everyday practice of religion is complex in its nature, ambivalent and at times contradictory. The task of an anthropology of religious practice is therefore precisely to see how people navigate and make sense of that complexity, and what the significance of religious beliefs and practices in a given setting can be. Rather than putting everyday practice and normative doctrine on different analytical planes, the authors argue that the articulation of religious doctrine is also an everyday practice and must be understood as such.

Samuli Schielke is a research fellow at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. His research interests include Islam, festive culture, subjectivity and morality, and migration and aspiration in Egypt.

Liza Debevec is a research fellow at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts. Her research focuses on the anthropology of everyday life practices in urban Burkina Faso.

“The great merit of this book consists in taking the practices of the people “on the ground” into account. It thereby addresses a gap: the moments when grand schemes and daily practices come together, often in contradiction or in complex and open ways… a compelling and inspirational volume.” · Allegra Laboratory

“Anthropologists will find many valuable references and many useful ideas and models for future research. As part of an expanding literature on the everyday, the collected essays suggest the advances still to be made by applying the notion of 'vernacular' or 'popular' to religion and to culture more generally.” · Anthropology Review Database

“Composed of eight ethnographically rich essays… [this] important, trenchant edited volume… offers a decisive intervention into the study of religion in an ‘unfixed’ world by modifying the category of religion with the analytic field of the ‘everyday’.” · American Ethnologist

“This volume is very well put-together. The editors have done a good job to rein in the various authors to a single collective argument… It's an important volume on an important issue.” · Jon Mitchell, University of Sussex

“The topic of everyday religion is becoming an increasingly attractive in the social sciences of religion, as an alternative to more orthodox and canonical accounts of religious phenomena… This volume sets out to debate the concept of ‘everyday religion’ in a very explicit and straightforward manner… The final result is a convincing volume with diverse and challenging case studies that open different paths for the discussion of the main theme.” · Ruy Blanes, Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Lisbon