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2. Cognitively Informed Ethnography: Using Mixed Methods to Capture the Complexity of Religious Phenomena in Two Ecologically Valid Settings


 
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1. Title Title of document 2. Cognitively Informed Ethnography: Using Mixed Methods to Capture the Complexity of Religious Phenomena in Two Ecologically Valid Settings - Studying the Religious Mind
 
2. Creator Author's name, affiliation, country Hugh Turpin; Queen's University Belfast / University of Oxford; Ireland
 
2. Creator Author's name, affiliation, country Mark Stanford; University of Oxford;
 
3. Subject Discipline(s) Religious Studies; Anthropology; History
 
4. Subject Keyword(s) cognitive science of religion; anthropology of religion; evolutionary religion; religion and culture; history of religion; ethnography; lived religion; psychology of religion; religious experience; religious behaviour; rites; rituals; worship
 
5. Subject Subject classification cognitive science of religion; anthropology; history
 
6. Description Abstract Here, we present two case studies which combine ethnographic fieldwork with quantitative methods to describe religious behaviour in two ecologically valid settings. Case Study 1 describes the use of mixed methods to explore whether different types of supernatural agents are associated with different categories of moral transgression in Burma, a syncretic and multi-religious environment which naturally lends itself to this question. In this case study, ethnography plays a key role in designing appropriate questionnaire measures, generating hypotheses, and interpreting the behaviour of experimental participants. Case Study 2 describes the use of mixed methods to investigate the interrelationships between religious scandals and the emergence of ex-Catholicism in Ireland, a country noted for its recent and rapid secularization. Here, ethnography plays a key role in elucidating the limitations of early experimental designs and generating further hypotheses, while surveying in turn addresses issues of representativeness in the fieldwork. Together, these case studies serve to illustrate a number of advantages and challenges that come with adopting a mixed methods approach. We close by outlining four reasons for mixing qualitative and quantitative methods when studying religious cognition in the field, using the case studies above as examples. These are: 1) methodological triangulation, 2) assessment of instruments and procedures, 3) qualitative/quantitative iteration, and 4) capturing the current context in scenarios where existing ethnographic research is sparse or deficient.
 
7. Publisher Organizing agency, location Equinox Publishing Ltd
 
8. Contributor Sponsor(s)
 
9. Date (YYYY-MM-DD) 04-Oct-2022
 
10. Type Status & genre Peer-reviewed Article
 
11. Type Type
 
12. Format File format PDF
 
13. Identifier Uniform Resource Identifier https://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/books/article/view/43002
 
14. Identifier Digital Object Identifier 10.1558/equinox.43002
 
15. Source Journal/conference title; vol., no. (year) Equinox eBooks Publishing; Studying the Religious Mind
 
16. Language English=en en
 
18. Coverage Geo-spatial location, chronological period, research sample (gender, age, etc.)
 
19. Rights Copyright and permissions Copyright 2014 Equinox Publishing Ltd