Comment: Conceptualizing Atheist Identity: Expanding Questions, Constructing Models, and Moving Forward
The developing social scientific literature on atheism is still working out the social significance, meaning, and processes of atheist identity formation. Scholars are also in the early stages of analyzing and understanding the collective and organizational activities of contemporary self-identified...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford Univ. Press
2013
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| In: |
Sociology of religion
Year: 2013, Volume: 74, Issue: 4, Pages: 454-463 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | The developing social scientific literature on atheism is still working out the social significance, meaning, and processes of atheist identity formation. Scholars are also in the early stages of analyzing and understanding the collective and organizational activities of contemporary self-identified atheists and the relationship of this to theism, religious practice and organization, belief, and other social phenomena that have long been of central concern to sociology. Understanding atheists and their relationship to these social processes and the broader culture will require a clearer picture of how and why some people come to identify with atheism, and in some cases, incorporate this identity as a central component of who they are. Steve LeDrew's (2013) article, “Discovering Atheism: Heterogeneity in Trajectories to Atheist Identity and Activism,” provides an opportunity to pause on some fairly basic questions about the nature of atheist identities and how best to conceptualize them. This will help advance our knowledge of not just atheists, but of the broader concepts and issues of identity, belief, boundaries, and culture in empirically relevant, and theoretically useful, ways. Here, I discuss some specifics for conceptualizing atheist identities in the contemporary context, and attempt to help clear a path for productive future research in this area. |
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| ISSN: | 1759-8818 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Sociology of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/socrel/srt052 |