Lee, L;
(2014)
Secular or nonreligious? Investigating and interpreting generic ‘not religious’ categories and populations.
Religion
, 44
(3)
466 - 482.
10.1080/0048721X.2014.904035.
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Abstract
In research dealing with religious affiliation, generic nonreligious categories – ‘no religion’, ‘not religious’, ‘nonreligious’, ‘nones’ – are frequently used to measure secularity and secularisation processes. Analysis of these categories is, however, problematic because they have not received dedicated methodological attention. Using qualitative research conducted in the UK, this article investigates what nonreligious categories measure and, specifically, whether they indicate non-identification or disaffiliation as assumed or an alternative form of cultural affiliation. Findings suggest that generic nonreligious categories are sometimes used to express substantive positions and public identities, and that these are diverse. These findings flatten distinctions between religious and nonreligious categories as ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ respectively and indicate problems therefore in using nonreligious identification to measure secularity and secularisation. They suggest nonreligious identification is, however, a useful indicator of the advance of nonreligious cultures and the ‘nonreligionisation’ of societies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Secular or nonreligious? Investigating and interpreting generic ‘not religious’ categories and populations |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/0048721X.2014.904035 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2014.904035 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2014 The Author(s). Published by Taylor & Francis This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The moral rights of the named author(s) have been asserted. Permission is granted subject to the terms of the License under which the work was published. Please check the License conditions for the work which you wish to reuse. Full and appropriate attribution must be given. This permission does not cover any third party copyrighted material which may appear in the work requested. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1456759 |
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