Knowing, Being, and Doing Religion

Ruth Illman,Mercédesz Czimbalmos

doi:10.33356/temenos.97275

Ruth Illman, Mercédesz Czimbalmos

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.97275

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Abstract

This article introduces a new analytical model for researching vernacular religion, which aims to capture and describe everyday religiosity as an interplay between knowing, being, and doing religion. It suggests three processes that tie this triad together: continuity; change; and context. The model is envisaged as a tool for tracing vernacular religion in ethnographic data in a multidimensional yet structured framework that is sensitive to historical data and cultural context, but also to individual narratives and nuances. It highlights the relationship between self-motivated modes of religiosity and institutional structures, as well as influences from secular sources and various traditions and worldviews.The article is based on an ongoing research project focusing on everyday Judaism in Finland. The ethnographic examples illustrate how differently these dynamics play out in different life narratives, depending on varying emphases, experiences, and situations. By bringing together major themes recognized as relevant in previous research and offering an analytical tool for detecting them in ethnographic materials, the model has the potential to create new openings for comparative research, because it facilitates the interlinking of datasets across contexts and cultures. The article concludes that the model can be developed into a more generally applicable analytical tool for structuring and elucidating contemporary ethnographies, mirroring a world of rapid cultural and religious change.

Highlights

This article introduces a new analytical model for researching vernacular religion, which aims to capture and describe everyday religiosity as an interplay between knowing, being, and doing religion
While the World Religions Paradigm (WRP) is still strong in education, media, and public debate, furnishing talk of religions with political ramifications and hegemonic overtones (Sutcliffe 2016, 24–5), researchers have turned to religion-as-lived paradigms to create counternarratives to the normative epistemologies (Taira 2016, 79), often supported by conceptual analyses of materiality, embodiment, and sensory apprehensions of religion (Illman 2019, 92–3; Whitehead 2013, 23–5; Enstedt 2020, 65)
In the research on vernacular religion the relationship between this self-motivated mode of religiosity and institutional structures is especially focal, as is the dialogue with secular sources and influences from other traditions and worldviews incorporated in personal religious practice (Hovi and Haapalainen 2015, 160)

Summary

Vernacular religion

The research framework of vernacular religion originates within folklore studies. The term was coined by Leonard Primiano as the study of ‘religion as it is lived: as human beings encounter, understand, interpret, and practice it’ (Primiano 1995, 44). Synonyms include ‘unforced’, ‘unguided’, and ‘self-evolving’, and are often related to educational praxis and learning In this interpretation omaehtoinen implies that general rules and structures have been shaped by the individual to her own liking; a positive process requiring maturity, self-realization, and adaptiveness (Kielitoimiston sanakirja). In the research on vernacular religion the relationship between this self-motivated mode of religiosity and institutional structures is especially focal, as is the dialogue with secular sources and influences from other traditions and worldviews incorporated in personal religious practice (Hovi and Haapalainen 2015, 160). This definition taps into another, viable, interpretative strand, shifting the focus from substance to function. While the vernacular has ‘largely changed in connotation today’, receiving recognition and influence, claims to know and represent ‘the voice of the people’ can be used for undemocratic and hegemonic ends (ibid., 138)

The analytical model

Summing up the proposed analytical model

Conclusions