Publication Type
Book Chapter
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
10-2019
Abstract
This chapter provides an overview of geographical and demographic approaches to leaving religion. Just as the study of leaving religion is associated with processes of religious conversion and change, geographical and demographic approaches seek to map such changes across space and the human lifecycle. More than that, the fact that “people enter, exit, and move within religion, just as they are born, will die, and migrate, in life” (Voas 2003: 94) reveals the importance of such approaches, not least because they seek to understand religious change within the frame of life events, such as schooling, work, marriage, migration, procreation, upward (or downward) socio-economic mobility, retirement and death. By combining an understanding of demographic events and the socio-economic, political and cultural contexts within which religious change takes place, it will become apparent how geographical and demographic approaches to leaving religion are mutually enriching, and have the potential to offer unique perspectives to understanding the phenomenon of leaving religion.
Keywords
Religious conversion, Geography, Demography, Conversion, Secularisation
Discipline
Religion
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Handbook of Leaving Religion
Volume
18
Editor
Daniel Enstedt, Göran Larsson, and Teemu T. Mantsinen
First Page
267
Last Page
277
ISBN
9789004331471
Identifier
10.1163/9789004331471_023
Publisher
Brill
City or Country
Leiden
Citation
KONG, Lily, & WOODS, Orlando. (2019). Geographical and demographic approaches to leaving religion. In Handbook of Leaving Religion (pp. 267-277). Leiden: Brill.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3002
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004331471_023