Grasping the Revolution
Fieldwork on Religion in China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v1i3.219Keywords:
religion in China, fieldwork methodsAbstract
Field research on religion in China cannot easily test sociological theories because of the constraints on investigation and the sensitivity of some topics. But the rapid resurgence of religions in China over the past 20 years provides many settings for fieldwork, and theoretical revolutions in the discipline in recent decades create analytical challenges. We have been most impressed by the usefulness of the religious economy model. We have found good empirical and theoretical reasons to use it in the study of the resurgence of religious activity in China over the past 20 years. But fieldwork in China also brings surprises, and it is difficult to study some phenomena without also influencing them in unexpected ways. We illustrate the relation between fieldwork, theory, and surprises, with example.
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References
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Bruce, S., 1999, Choice and Religion: A Critique of Rational Choice Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Campbell, E., 1982, ‘The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Female Self-Image: A Mexican Case History’. In R. Preston (ed.), Mother Worship: Themes and Variations. Charlotte, NC: University of North Carolina Press: 5-24.
Chan, S.C., 2005, ‘Temple Building and Heritage in China’. Ethnology 44(1): 65-79.
Dean, K., 1993, Taoist Ritual and Popular Religion in Southeastern China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
—1998, Lord of the Three in One: The Spread of a Cult in Southeast China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Ferguson, J., 1970, The Religions of the Roman Empire. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Finke, R., and R. Stark., 1992, The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Friedrich, P., 1978, The Meaning of Aphrodite. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Iannaccone, L.R., 1991, ‘The Consequences of Religious Market Regulation: Adam Smith and the Economics of Religion’. Rationality and Society 3(2): 156-77.
Jing, J., 1996, The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Kuah, K.E., 2000, Rebuilding the Ancestral Village: Singaporeans in China. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Lang, G., 1997, ‘Sacred Power in the Metropolis: Shrines and Temples in Hong Kong’. In G. Evans and M. Tam (eds.), Hong Kong: The Anthropology of a Chinese Metropolis. Richmond: Curzon Press: 242-65.
—2004, ‘Challenges for the Sociology of Religion in Asia’, Social Compass 51(1): 99-109.
Lang, G., and L. Ragvald, 1993, The Rise of a Refugee God: Hong Kong’s Huang Daxian. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.
—1998, ‘Spirit Writing and the Development of Chinese Cults’. Sociology of Religion 59(4): 309-28.
Lang, G., S.C. Chan, and L. Ragvald, 2005, ‘Temples and the Religious Economy’. In Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney (eds.), State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies. Leiden: Brill: 149-80.
Muller, H., 1958, The Loom of History. New York: New American Library.
Murray, G., 1951, Five Stages of Greek Religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor Books.
Perry, E.J., 1985, ‘Rural Violence in Socialist China’. The China Quarterly 103: 415-40.
Stark, R., and W.S. Bainbridge, 1987, A Theory of Religion. New York: Peter Lang.
Stark, R., and R. Finke, 2000, Acts of Faith: Explaining the Human Side of Religion. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Tamney, J.B., and Linda H.-L. Chiang, 2002, Modernization, Globalization, and Confucianism in Chinese Societies. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Thogersen, S., 2000, ‘Cultural Life and Cultural Control in Rural China: Where is the Party?’ The China Journal 44: 129-44.
Warner, S.R., 1993, ‘Work in Progress toward a New Paradigm for the Sociological Study of Religion in the United States’. American Journal of Sociology 98: 1044-93.
Yang, D.R., 2005, ‘The Changing Economy of Temple Daoism in Shanghai’. In Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney (eds.), State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies. Leiden: Brill: 113-48.
Yang, F., 2005, ‘Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China’. In Fenggang Yang and Joseph B. Tamney (eds.), State, Market, and Religions in Chinese Societies. Leiden: Brill: 19-40.
—2006, ‘The Red, Black, and Gray Markets of Religion in China’. Sociological Quarterly 93(1): 93-122.
Published
2005-12-01
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Lang, G., & Ragvald, L. (2005). Grasping the Revolution: Fieldwork on Religion in China. Fieldwork in Religion, 1(3), 219-233. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v1i3.219
