"Starting from an ethnographic appraisal of the place of religious practices, this volume offers a detailed understanding of English everyday life through its examination of three contemporary case studies; the life of a country church, an annual procession by the churches in a Bristol suburb, and a range of linked 'spiritualist' beliefs. These disclose the complex patterns and compulsions of ordinary lives - in both moral and historical dimensions - as manifested in the distribution of reputation, in conflict, and in the continuities of place and identity. At the same time, this approach revises previous accounts of English social life by giving a nuanced description of the way local lives are constructed through interaction with a wider setting. It also demonstrates how local particularities are created under an outside gaze, showing how actors cope with the forces of 'modernity'."--Jacket
Includes bibliographical references (pages 239-249) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:
Foreword / David Parkin -- Introduction: Religious Elements in an Ethnography of Everyday Life -- Two Sociological Approaches to Religion in Modern Britain -- The Country Church -- The Case of St. Mary's, Comberton -- The Kingswood Whit Walk -- The Whit Walk -- Family and Locality -- 'Fiends Transformed': A Discussion of Local History -- Respectability, Reputation and Restraint -- Anxiety, Conflict and Gossip -- Secrets of the Spirit World.
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