Publication details
Přenos laboratoře do terénu : využití smíšených metod během terénního studia náboženství
| Title in English | Bringing the Lab into the Field : Using Mixed Methods to Study Religion in the Wild |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Sociální studia |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Web | [verze online] |
| Field | Philosophy and religion |
| Keywords | academic study of religion; anthropology; cognitive sciences; interdisciplinarity |
| Description | Despite the tremendous importance of religion for so many people, its study has been confined to isolated and fragmented academic pockets, while a coherent integrative framework is lacking. The Cognitive Study of Religion, which constitutes one of the most important approaches to religion to appear over the last decades, seeks to bridge the gap between the traditional study of religion and the natural sciences. However, scholars on both sides of this bridge have often been reluctant to meet each other in the middle of the bridge, and rather seem to be waiting reluctantly (if at all) for the other party to cross over. The result is a fragmented field of study, which fails to exploit the potential of new scientific methods and discoveries. Focusing on the interplay between laboratory and field methods, I argue for an integrative approach that will be both analytical and synthetic. In such an approach, the traditional qualitative methods of the humanities and the more quantitative ones of the behavioural sciences are not antagonistic but complementary. |
| Related projects: |