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Taking up the “problem of belief” discussed in this introduction, but now from a more practical perspective, Kim Knibbe (Chapter 10) reflects on the dilemmas of conducting participant observation in religious contexts. She asks how, as a researcher, one navigates the ways in which religious ways of explaining, interpreting and making sense of the world may compete or clash with academic ones. Traditionally, there seem to be roughly three options available to the researcher: methodological atheism, methodological theism or methodological agnosticism. Knibbe demonstrates that each of these positions create their own problems in ethnographic fieldwork, particularly in terms of the relationship between the researcher and the “researched”. Drawing on her fieldwork among people who call themselves “spiritual” in the Dutch context, she discusses how developing and maintaining rapport involves negotiating not only issues of differences in cognitive frameworks, but also differences in embodiment, emotion and affect. By summarizing some of the literature and drawing on her personal experiences, Knibbe explores how views on dealing with the dilemmas discussed relate to different ideas about what “research” entails. In a very concrete way, then, the chapter by Knibbe exemplifies the kind of reflection on their own positionality and presuppositions that Van den Belt in his contribution argues all researchers should engage in.

To elucidate the various ways of approaching the subject matter, this introductory chapter will first outline three different modes of defining religion. In some cultures and historical periods, the category of religion may be alien to the context that is studied. Nevertheless, the phenomenon in question is part of a body of thought and practices that is now identified as religious. How did these phenomena come to be studied as ‘religion’ in that tradition? What is the history of such definitions? We will then address the issue of theory: what is it, and why do you need it? We will also introduce some basic distinctions in levels of analysis that we think are useful to navigate our way through the conversations across disciplinary boundaries that often take place within religious studies. Another issue that will be addressed is the relationship of the researcher to the religious context: should one be a ‘believer’ to understand religion? Or is the category of belief itself problematic? This question is a variation of the ‘insider/outsider’ discussion in anthropology, and our discussion will thus draw heavily on these discussions. In closing, we give an outline of the book and how the chapters relate to the central question of how religion is studied.

Central to public debates about commonalities and differences between citizens of different religious and cultural backgrounds is the compatibility of cultural values and the norms through which these values are actualized. Values, and changes in value systems, are the central theme in Chapter 14 of this volume, in which Peter Berger discusses a specific strand of structural anthropology that he emphasizes can be useful in the analysis of both empirical and historical data: the theory of value as developed by Louis Dumont, which has its roots in Durkheim’s sociology of religion. Berger begins by contextualizing Dumont’s theory in the history of the discipline of anthropology by outlining the main features of Dumont’s analytical framework and how it has been developed by Joel Robbins. He sketches how Dumont, informed by his Indological and anthropological research on the Hindu caste system, developed a general theory of hierarchy, the latter being just the other side of the coin of value (as posing a value introduces hierarchy). While Lévi-Strauss was mainly concerned with binary oppositions in cultural structures, Dumont argued that relationships between ideas are hierarchical. Left and right, for instance, are not simply opposites but stand in a hierarchical relation. When taking an oath or shaking hands after making an agreement, only the right hand is appropriate because it stands for the whole person. Dumont discussed the various properties of value and added the concepts of “context” and “level” in order to account for a dynamic relationship between ideas and values within a certain framework he called ideology. Joel Robbins further developed the dynamic potential in Dumont’s theory in explaining processes of change and globalization. In line with Mason’s argument that the label of “religion” as a universal cultural category often obfuscates more than it illuminates outside the Western world, the author demonstrates that the theory of value as developed by Dumont and Robbins provides an important perspective from which to study religion, precisely because it does not depend on “religion” as a privileged analytical concept or domain.

Dictionnaire de la Méditerranée, sous la direction de Dionigi Albera, Maryline Crivello et Mohamed Tozy, en collaboration avec Gisèle Seimandi, Actes Sud, 2016, 1694 p., ISBN 978-2-330-06466-2., Imprimés, Dicomed-017, DicoMed : Dictionnaire de la Méditerranée

In this article, we compare representations of the pilgrimage to Mecca posted on Facebook and Youtube by 'ordinary' pilgrims from Morocco and (semi)professional bloggers of Moroccan parentage in the Netherlands. We discuss how such posts challenge representations that circulate in the mainstream media in both countries about Islam in general and the hajj in particular. For Morocco we demonstrate that this kind of digital mediation of pilgrimage contests the ways in which the state-organized hajj is framed in Morocco's national media. For the Netherlands, we argue that bloggers deconstruct dominant images of the Muslim 'other' in their self-presentations as specifically Dutch Muslim pilgrims by connecting the meanings they attribute to the pilgrimage to Mecca to universal issues.

This chapter first investigates why theology’s relationship with religious studies is complicated and tense. Then the question regarding theology’s proper limitations and object is answered from one of the classic theological traditions: scholasticism. Next, it reflects on the issue of whether a theological perspective makes any difference for historical research. This is illustrated from the analysis of some woodcuts from the period of the Reformation. The section finally explains what a theological perspective can add to the general understanding of the history of Christianity and how this perspective relates to a comprehensive worldview. For theologians, as Henk van den Belt explains in Chapter 4, it is not enough to experience and believe in divine transcendence without rationally thinking it through (the strand within modern philosophy discussed by Vanden Auweele according to which no rational concepts should be superimposed on religious experiences): theologians continue where other religious studies scholars leave off, by aiming to arrive at a more satisfactory approximation of the ultimate knowledge of existence that they believe rests with God. In his chapter, Van den Belt reflects on the nature of a theological perspective in religious studies by drawing on his own study of the woodcut illustrations in Martin Luther’s catechisms. He argues that although the research question concerning the meaning of the woodcuts as such is not necessarily theological, several specific characteristics of a theological approach can be identified in his research project. Van den Belt distinguishes three levels of analysis of the woodcuts in which specific theological issues play a role. The first concerns the object of research: theological expertise in the history of Christian doctrines and practices is important for understanding the message of the pictures. On a second, methodological level, Van den Belt observes a tension between the perspectives of theology and religious studies: a theological interpretation assesses the sources from the perspective of a shared belief. This means that the research question concerning the woodcuts is no longer confined to an analysis of the pictures, but is subsequently related to the theological presuppositions of Christianity, or in this case of (Lutheran) Protestantism. Finally, on an epistemological level, theologians are critically aware of and acknowledge the worldview in which they connect all knowledge to their basic convictions and beliefs regarding God’s relationship to the world. Van den Belt concludes his contribution by arguing that although this third epistemological and confessional level should not influence the results of the academic study, it should not be denied or excluded either. Assuming a position that resembles the argument concerning “positionality” above, Van den Belt instead holds that theologians and other researchers alike should reflect on and account for their own presuppositions.

This paper discusses the hajj memoir Standing Alone (2006) by the journalist Asra Nomani to demonstrate how before, during and after her hajj performance, the author moves back and forth between various moral discourses that inform her daily life in order to make sense of her multiple senses of belonging and to claim more space for women participation and in today’s global and local Umma (community of Muslims). Using ‘Dialogical Self theory’ (DST) (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka) to analyze ‘dialogues’ between the various temporally and spatially situated ‘voices’ that populate Nomani’s hajj memoir, it is argued that what the author experiences as literally ‘stepping in the footsteps of Hajar’, like herself a single mother whose faith in and rescue by God is played out during the Hajj, Nomani finds a strong female Muslim role model to identify with. Thus appropriating Islam as an empowering moral discourse, Nomani takes the extraordinary experience of the hajj back home to her everyday life to become an activist in order to claim Muslim women’s rights as equal citizens in the various communities that she belongs.

This contribution discusses contestations of Saudi regulations concerning gender-segregation in certain places in Mecca by a group of young female hajj pilgrims from the Netherlands. It is demonstrated how a seemingly mundane matter as sanitary arrangements during the hajj can come to stand for the much larger issue of religious underpinning of gender equality; the women object to Saudi spatial arrangements not only as hindrances to their spiritual journey but also because they contradict the women’s views on gender equality. The authors demonstrate that feelings of being denied equal access to spiritual reward compared to male pilgrims played a crucial role in women’s responses to the restrictions they faced. They point out that the significance of women’s objections to restrictions on their freedom of movement reaches beyond religious interests. Linking the meanings of the hajj to the specific quotidian life-worlds of the women, the authors show that mobility is both an integral part of religious self-formation and informs how religious experiences are interpreted in relation to changing notions and assessments of places that people currently dwell in, inhabited in the past or long to be in the future

The chapter attempts to reverse a long-standing trend. Academic religious studies have long been assimilators of concepts and methods established in other disciplines, so much so that the separate identity of religious studies has been questioned by leading practitioners. The present chapter proposes the contrary opinion that religious studies have much to offer other disciplines. In this vein it suggests that the historiography of philosophy, in particular, could profit by taking its cue from the terminology and research interests of religious studies. Using Stoicism as its central case study, the chapter explores inter alia the analytical usefulness of Ninian Smartʼs differentiation between seven dimensions of religion and also of the concept of ‘lived religion’. Finally, the chapter reflects on what the academic study of religion stands to gain by engaging with the history of philosophy.