An outsider looking in

Sayer, Andrew (2025) An outsider looking in. In: Messy Methods in Researching Religion :. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 287-297. ISBN 9780199687893

Abstract

This chapter provides an outsider’s view of questions relating to methods used in Religious Studies. It draws on the author’s experience as a social scientist with a special interest in philosophy and methodology and has a ‘critical realist’ standpoint (Collier, 1994; Sayer, 2000a, 2010). It addresses some common underlying assumptions in discussions of empirical research methods, and highlights the importance of how we conceptualize things, before we get onto questions of methods. Issues covered include ‘dichotomania’ in methodology; the confusion of objectivity with value- freedom; the implications of the positionality of researchers; complementarities among different methods; ‘representativeness’; action research; actors’ meanings, emotions, and scholastic bias; escaping the confines of disciplines; contested categories such as ‘spirituality’; and the nature of progress in research.