Symbolic Interactionism and Religion

Abstract

This chapter aims to discuss how symbolic interactionism can take the opportunity to draw on its conceptual corpus to shed light on the new forms of religiosity expressed in contemporary social processes. This goal will be pursued in four stages: in the first stage the extreme importance that religion has had in the social sciences will be underlined, assuming the sociological perspective as the main point of reference; the second will describe the position of the symbolic interactionist perspective in relation to this theme; the third will focus on the richness that emerges from the most recent empirical research carried out by interactionist-oriented scholars related to religious phenomena; the fourth, recovering the reflections and exemplifications set out in the previous three parts, aims to argue the need for symbolic interactionism to invest in the study of religion and religiosity as a strategic means to the understanding of more complex social phenomena, such as those of identity construction and cultural changes in our contemporary times.