Abby Day - Believing in Belonging. Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World [2011][A]

Book Description
Believing in Belonging draws on empirical research exploring mainstream religious belief and identity in Euro-American countries. Starting from a qualitative study based in northern England, and then broadening the data to include other parts of Europe and North America, Abby Day explores how people "believe in belonging," choosing religious identifications to complement other social and emotional experiences of "belongings." The concept of "performative belief" helps explain how otherwise non-religious people can bring into being a Christian identity related to social belongings.
What is often dismissed as "nominal" religious affiliation is far from an empty category, but one loaded with cultural "stuff" and meaning. Day introduces an original typology of natal, ethnic and aspirational nominalism that challenges established disciplinary theory in both the European and North American schools of the sociology of religion that assert that most people are "unchurched" or "believe without belonging" while privately maintaining beliefs in God and other "spiritual" phenomena.
This study provides a unique analysis and synthesis of anthropological and sociological understandings of belief and proposes a holistic, organic, multidimensional analytical framework to allow rich cross cultural comparisons. Chapters focus in particular on: the genealogies of "belief" in anthropology and sociology, methods for researching belief without asking religious questions, the acts of claiming cultural identity, youth, gender, the "social" supernatural, fate and agency, morality and a development of anthropocentric and theocentric orientations that provides a richer understanding of belief than conventional religious/secular distinctions.

Reviews
"Highly interesting...an important contribution to the current debates within the sociology of religion concerning religious beliefs and changes in the relationship between the religious and secular aspects of European and American societies. It is also an easily approachable book, which can be read by anyone who is interested in research on belief, either from the point of view of sociology, anthropology or religious studies."--Approaching Religion

"Believing in Belonging provides us with a new approach to theorizing belief, making a place for both religious and social understandings of this concept...The book makes an important contribution to the literature and moves us forward in our study of beliefs and the roles they play in people's lives."--American Journal of Sociology

About the Author
Dr Abby Day, Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, is an internationally recognised scholar in the social scientific study of religion. She has conducted several inter-disciplinary research projects focusing on contemporary belief and belonging in Euro American contexts and is a sought-after speaker at international conference and workshops. Previous publications include an edited volume, Religion and the Individual, several academic papers and book chapters focusing on youth, gender, the 'social supernatural', cultural identity and the nature of 'nominal belief'.