Ethnography of Religion

Ethnography of religion is a field-based method in which the researcher spends an extended period living among and participating in the life of a religious community in order to understand its practices from within. Its interpretive form was crystallized by Clifford Geertz, whose 1973 essays - especially 'Religion as a Cultural System' in The Interpretation of Cultures - defined religion as a system of symbols that establishes powerful moods and motivations and casts an aura of factuality over a conception of the world. The method combines participant observation, field notes, and interviews with what Geertz called 'thick description': not merely recording what people do, but interpreting the layered meanings their acts carry. The aim is to render an unfamiliar religious world intelligible by attending to ritual, everyday practice, and the symbols through which a community makes sense of existence.