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Religious Sources of Solidarity in Europe
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EmailProfessor Peer Scheepers
Radboud University Nijmegen, Faculty of Theology, Department of Empirical Theology
Leslie Francis, University of Warwick
Sigrid Roßteutscher, W.Goethe-University of Frankfurt
Hans Schilderman, Radboud University Nijmegen
Jacques Janssen, Radboud University Nijmegen
Eelke de Jong, Radboud University Nijmegen
Postdoc: Jan Reitsma, Radboud University Nijmegen
Juniors: Marike van Tienen, Radboud University Nijmegen
Emyr Williamson, University of Warwick
Margarete Jozefiak, W.Goethe-University of Frankfurt
Daniel Stegmüller, W.Goethe-University of Frankfurt
Contact: p.scheepers@maw.ru.nl
Research aim
‘Does religion re-emerge as a social force in Europe?’ is one of the leading questions in the NORFACE Research Programme. The aim of the EURESOURCE programme acts to empirically pursue NORFACE’s call as balanced and accurately as possible by pursuing the following research aim for our programme at hand:
To clarify and explain the social force that religion exerts in supporting solidary attitudes and behaviour in the changing religious landscape of Europe.
Religion
The programme at hand investigates religion both in its formal or manifest and its informal or latent form. We aim to clarify if, where, when, how and why religious capital is ‘unlocked’ and ‘invested’. Thus, speaking of re-mergence first of all implies that we do have to take into account religions’ empirical history in Europe as institutionalized Christian religion; without it, we simply could neither describe re-emerging religion nor explain its changing social force. That being said, we propose that religious capital also implies latent religion that is not formalized but implicit in self-ascribed religiosity or private religious practices. Thus, parallel to but distinguished from established and manifest religion we also aim to describe informal religion.
Solidarity
To determine the social force of religious capital in the various national contexts of Europe we will focus on solidarity. Thus we aim to clarify the extent to which solidarity in the various European countries varies over time and (still) depends on religious sources and whether or not trends can be observed in this respect.
Solidarity will be understood in terms of attitudes and practices that display the unity of a community with regard to shared obligations, interests, sympathies and aspirations. We will study solidarity in three different domains: solidarity with intimate others like family and friends; solidarity with the community and civil society; and national or global solidarity. A domain-specific approach allows us to offer a balanced answer to the question of which factor is actually changing: religion, solidarity, or the assumed social force that connects the two?
Schematic representation of the research click image to enlarge
The above scheme represents the research ideas of our research programme. We will investigate the relation between formal and informal religiosity on the one hand and solidarity with intimate others, community and civil society, as well as national and global on the other hand. By longitudinal and cross-national comparison the relations between time and national context on religiosity and solidarity and the relation between those two will be studied.
The four projects within EURESOURCE
Our research programme consists of four projects (one post-doctoral and three PhD projects), each with a specific task to be carried out at three locations where the respective experts of the board are located.
Postdoc: longitudinal changes in religiosity and solidarity
Jan Reitsma
The post-doc project will construct the datasets that are neccesary to answer the two longitudinal research questions: to what extent do specific phenomena related to religion and solidarity fluctuate over time in the various European countries during the last decades?
Junior I: religious support of solidarity with intimate others
Emyr Williams
The first junior-project tackles the research questions in the domain of family and friends by managing a project that focuses on solidarity based on affective compliance, where love and friendship count to establish and maintain intimate bonds.
Junior II: religious support of solidarity with the community and civil society
Marike van Tienen
The second junior-project will answer the research questions in the domain of community and civil society where people comply with solidarity by contributing to social needs on a voluntary basis. Insights of the influence of religion on this domain of solidarity will be clarified per country taking into account religious and social subgroups, compared between countries, and researched for cross-national patterns.
Junior III: religious support of solidarity in the national and global domain
Daniel Stegmüller & Margarete Jozefiak
The third junior-project will take care of the research questions in the solidarity domain of society at large, where compliance is based on cultural and legal regulations, pulling economical and political aspects of solidarity at focus. Here, polity related issues in relation to state and welfare are at centre.
