Category and Practice as Two Aspects of Religion: The Case of Nepalis in Britain

Abstract

This article suggests that religion is best understood as comprising at least two features of human life: category and practice. Religious category and religious practice may or may not overlap in a given population's religious identification or ascription, but such a differentiation is highly significant and should be made in the social, political, and cognitive study of religion. Three examples are offered whereby religious category and religious practice need to be distinguished in order to understand the ethnographic data. Rather than seeing religion as an undifferentiated or singular phenomenon classified by type, category and practice should be considered fundamental elements of religiosity that are both connected to and distinct from one another. The cases are drawn from Nepalis in the UK: The example of Nepali religion, in Nepal and in the diaspora, forms a complex set of categories and practices that testify to their distinctiveness and to their interaction.