Droogers & van Harskamp/Methods for the Study, Part II Introduction

In Part II of this volume on the methodology of studying religion, we find five case studies in which such dealing with dichotomies and tensions in the field is illustrated. In each of the case studies one aspect of a form of modern religion is highlighted. The distinct aspects are presented in this order: first the aspect of “ritual” (in a pentecostal Christian community and in a spiritual society in the Netherlands, Chapter 5), second “experience” (in a religious meditation centre in Amsterdam, Chapter 6), third spiritual “language” (in the life stories of a number of Dutch artists, Chapter 7), fourthly “morality” (in a group of Catholics in Limburg, a once deeply “Catholic” province in the Netherlands, Chapter 8) and finally the aspect of “identity” (of Muslims in the Netherlands, Chapter 9). In each chapter the methodological consequences of the qualitative encounter of the researcher’s self and the researched other are discussed.