Aktuelles aus Theologie und Religionsforschung

Together with Dr. Kornelia Sammet (Univ. of Leipzig) Schäfer organized a panel on Religion and Social Inequality which gave the opportunity to, mostly young, researchers to present ongoing studies on how different settings of social inequality relate to religious praxis. An ethnography of belief, identity and change was discussed, as well as the relation between social position of the afterlife in Germany.

Jens Köhrsen – member of the CIRRuS team – presented some results of his recently completed field research on Religious tastes in modern religious markets: The example of Argentinean Pentecostalism. Most interestingly, Köhrsen explained differences in religious styles and tastes by reference to social positions and focused specially on the urban middle class.

Schäfer concluded the sessions with an additional paper on the Potentials of Bourdieu’s general theory for the study of religious praxis. He discussed epistemological premises of praxeological research – especially the relevance of neo-kantian relationism (Cassirer) – and introduced in CIRRuS’ “Habitus-Analysis” as a consequently relationist model for the research on cognitive operators of practical logic.