Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Religious Indifference pp 43–63Cite as

A Discursive Approach to ‘Religious Indifference’: Critical Reflections from Edinburgh’s Southside

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

This chapter takes as its starting point the sustained and rigorous critique to which the category of ‘religion’ has been subjected in recent decades, in combination with contributions from contemporary studies of ‘non-religion’ and ‘secularity’. Whether understood at an individual, institutional or societal level, constituencies that have remarkably little investment in the concept of ‘religion’, or who explicitly articulate stances of ‘indifference’, clearly have much to say to the theorisation and critique of both ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’. In this chapter I discuss prevalent academic understandings of ‘indifference’, and outline my reservations surrounding conceptualising it in an ideal-typical manner, and as a form of ‘non-religion’. I then introduce a discursive approach as a possible alternative before providing empirical examples from my ongoing research examining discourses on religion in the Southside of Edinburgh, which both address my critique and conceptualise instances of ‘indifference’ as contextually meaningful discursive acts.

This chapter is an outcome of my doctoral research at Lancaster University, generously supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. I would like to express my gratitude to them and, as ever, to my supervisor, Kim Knott, for her constant support and encouragement.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   79.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   129.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For more on this critique, see Cotter and Robertson (2016).

  2. 2.

    Although in the past I have utilised the non-hyphenated ‘nonreligion’, my current preference is to utilise ‘non-religion’ in order to orthographically emphasise the relational nature of this category, and to emphasise that I do not wish to reify ‘nonreligion’ as a substantive phenomenon. Where I cite the work of others I shall preserve their preferred (non-)hyphenation.

  3. 3.

    For more on the recent academic study of non-religion, see Bullivant and Lee (2012), Pasquale (2012), or Cotter (2011a).

  4. 4.

    See particularly Rebecca Catto (2017 – this volume) and the editors’ introduction (Quack and Schuh 2017 – this volume).

  5. 5.

    By pointing out the problematic nature of these particular ideal types, I do not wish to cast aspersions on the construction of ideal types in general. I merely wish to highlight the problems I can discern at this early stage in the theorisation of indifference, and offer a solution which can sidestep such problems. Indeed there are chapters in this volume–particularly those that take a quantitative approach (Bréchon 2017 and Siegers 2017 – both this volume) that productively proceed along ideal typical lines.

  6. 6.

    In a recorded roundtable discussion, Steven Sutcliffe made a similar point, stating that ‘people have opinions about all kinds of things and contexts, and I think there’s a danger that if you . . .take that as a cue for the introduction of the “nonreligious” . . . concern there’s the risk of continuing to find “religion” wherever we can, . . . uncovering “religion” where really there isn’t anything [there]’ (in Connelly et al. 2012).

  7. 7.

    See also Schuh, Burchardt and Wohlrab-Sahr on ‘settled periods’ where ‘cultural understandings of secularity . . . remain latent’ (2012, 359).

  8. 8.

    Thanks to the editors for their helpful comments on this point. See also Nash (2017 – in this volume), on indifference as a space that is occupied, rather than a particular state.

  9. 9.

    It is also worth noting that a discursive approach is not the only way in which difficulties surrounding ‘locating’ indifference could be addressed. As the metaphor implies, another significant avenue for ‘locating indifference’ would be to examine the variety of ways in which indifference is made manifest in bodily and spatial practices, such as Lee’s analysis of ‘banal nonreligion’ (2012a, 90 ff.; 2015, 70–105).

  10. 10.

    Lee has since refined her definition further, in acknowledgement of this critique: ‘Non-religion is therefore any phenomenon-position, perspective, or practice - that is primarily understood in relation to religion but which is not itself considered to be religious’ (2015, 32).

  11. 11.

    It is also worth noting that this understanding of indifference to religion as arising out of a situation of perceived pervasiveness of religion flies somewhat in the face of those who might assert that such indifference is an attribute primarily of thoroughly secularised societies (cf. Bruce 2002, 42).

  12. 12.

    Presumably an individual cannot show indifference to the ‘entirety’ of their own religion, otherwise acts of identification would not occur by which they could be associated with a religion. That being said, this act of association–an act of positioning–need not be on the part of the individual in question. As demonstrated in the introduction, social actors can be designated as ‘indifferent’ by others.

  13. 13.

    For more on differentiating indifference according to what aspect of ‘religion’ people are actually indifferent to, see section 4 of the editors’ introduction.

  14. 14.

    See also Hervieu-Léger (2000, 168), who describes a ‘mounting indifference’ to religious institutions exemplified by ‘believers’, and Lee and Klug (2017 – both this volume) on the contextuality and dimensionality of indifference.

  15. 15.

    Where ‘field’ should be understood as a contested space within which discourse relevant to a particular theme occurs.

  16. 16.

    Although not particularly relevant for this chapter, the organising rubric of my ongoing study is ‘locality’, i.e. spaces, whether material or discursive, that are ‘meaningful for those [actors] within it, […are] important for individual and group identity, and […are] practical working environment[s]’, which are also amenable to academic study due to their size and relative internal coherence (Knott 1998, 283–284). This allows me to avoid extracting discourses ‘from their historical context and eliminat[ing...] the operations of speakers in particular situations of time, place, and competition.’(de Certeau 1984, 20), and simultaneously to ‘challenge . . . the conception of ‘World Religions’ as unities focused on discrete, systematic sets of traditions, and normative beliefs and practices’(Knott 2009, 159).

  17. 17.

    A joint project between the City of Edinburgh Council’s Museums and Galleries Division and the Workers’ Educational Association (cf. City of Edinburgh Council 1996; Clark et al. 1996).

  18. 18.

    All names are pseudonyms.

  19. 19.

    ‘What religion, religious denomination or body do you belong to?’

  20. 20.

    A number of other interviewees did the same, as did many others who I could not convince to speak with me.

  21. 21.

    And, indeed, for understanding ‘religion.’

  22. 22.

    This is a non-denominational Christian initiative, describing itself as ‘for those who are not religious and don’t do church.’ One of the major outputs of this initiative is advertising on public buses around the UK with the simple slogan ‘try praying.’ Support for this initiative is voluntary and on a church-by-church basis. Many of the churches in Edinburgh have supported this initiative financially, and by placing banners similar to the bus adverts outside their buildings. See http://www.trypraying.co.uk/ and http://www.thereishope.co.uk/ for more information. (Accessed 16/05/2015).

  23. 23.

    I cannot escape acknowledging that the context of the interviews will have likely contributed to this reaction.

  24. 24.

    Similar discourses are evident in the world of (stand-up) comedy, which can be seen as a useful barometer for a dominant ‘left-leaning’ constituency in contemporary Britain (cf. McKearney 2011; Cotter et al. 2012).

  25. 25.

    The congregation that met in the church merged with two other congregations in 1969 (Pinkerton 2012, 32) and the Community Centre opened in 1986 (Palmer 2007). In the interim the building served as a saleroom.

  26. 26.

    See Burchardt (2017, 95–97 – this volume), on the transformation of ‘religion’ into ‘secular cultural heritage.’

  27. 27.

    See BBC News Online (2014).

  28. 28.

    See Baumann (1996) for more on ‘dominant’ versus ‘demotic’ discourses.

  29. 29.

    Similar points are made by Remmel on Estona, Catto and Nash on the UK, and Burchardt on Quebec (2017 – all this volume) – concerning the cultural hegemony of indifference and the attendant pressure to be indifferent (or to perform indifference).

  30. 30.

    Due to the nature of the particular interviews involved in my study, where interviewees were knowingly participating in a study related to ‘religion’, it was somewhat inevitable that the repertoire of discourses invoked would be ‘religion-related’. However, this brief discussion has illustrated that this need not have been the case.

References

  • Bagg, Samuel, and David Voas. 2010. The Triumph of Indifference: Irreligion in British Society. In Atheism and Secularity – Volume 2: Global Expressions, ed. Phil Zuckerman, 91–111. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

    Google Scholar 

  • Banks, Marcus. 2001. Visual Methods in Social Research. London: SAGE.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Baumann, Gerd. 1996. Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-ethnic London. Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • BBC News Online. 2014. “PM’s Christianity Remarks ‘Divisive.’” BBC News. April 21. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-27099700.

  • Beckford, James A. 1999. The Politics of Defining Religion in Secular Society: From a Taken for Granted Institution to a Contested Resource. In The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts, Concepts and Contests, ed. Jan G. Platvoet and Arie L. Molendijk, 23–40. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2003. Social Theory and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bender, Courtney. 2012. Practicing Religions. In The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, ed. Robert A. Orsi, 273–295. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010. “Sociologists of Belief and Beliefs of Sociologists.” Translated by Véronique Altglas and Matthew Wood. Nordic Journal of Religion and Society 23 (1): 1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bréchon, Pierre. 2017. Measuring religious indifference in international sociological quantitative surveys (EVS and ISSP). In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 148–175. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruce, Steve. 1996. Religion in the Modern World: From Cathedrals to Cults. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2002. God Is Dead: Secularisation in the West. Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bullivant, Stephen. 2008. Introducing Irreligious Experiences. Implicit Religion 11(1): 7–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Not so Indifferent After All? Self-Conscious Atheism and the Secularisation Thesis. Approaching Religion 2(1): 100–106.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bullivant, Stephen, and Lois Lee. 2012. Interdisciplinary Studies of Non-religion and Secularity: The State of the Union. Journal of Contemporary Religion 27(1): 19–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burchardt, Marian. 2017. Is Religious Indifference Bad for Secularism? Lessons from Canada. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 90–106. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Burr, Vivien. 2003. Social Constructionism. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catto, Rebecca. 2017. Interfaith Dialogue and the Challenge of Indifference: Reflections from Fieldwork in the City of Peace and Reconciliation. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 72–89. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • City of Edinburgh Council. 1996. Peoples of Edinburgh: Methodology and Evaluation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, Helen, Lorraine Dick, and Basabi Fraser. 1996. Peoples of Edinburgh: Our Multicultural City, Personal Recollections, Experiences and Photographs. Edinburgh: The City of Edinburgh Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Connelly, Louise, Christopher R. Cotter, Frans Jespers, Ethan Gjerset Quillen, Steven J. Sutcliffe, and Teemu Taira. 2012. “Podcast: Studying Nonreligion within Religious Studies.” The Religious Studies Project. December 17. http://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/2012/12/17/podcast-studying-nonreligion-within-religious-studies/.

  • Cotter, Christopher R. 2011a. Qualitative Methods Workshop (NSRN Methods for Nonreligion and Secularity Series). NSRN Events Report Series [online]. NSRN. http://www.nsrn.net/events/events-reports.

  • ———. 2011b. “Toward a Typology of ‘Nonreligion’: A Qualitative Analysis of Everyday Narratives of Scottish University Students.” Unpublished MSc by Research Dissertation, Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. http://www.academia.edu/1329691/Toward_a_Typology_of_Nonreligion_A_Qualitative_Analysis_of_Everyday_Narratives_of_Scottish_University_Students

  • ———. 2015. Without God yet Not Without Nuance: A Qualitative Study of Atheism and Non-religion among Scottish University Students. In Atheist Identities: Spaces and Social Contexts, ed. Lori G. Beaman and Steven Tomlins, 171–194. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cotter, Christopher R., Rebecca Aechtner, and Johannes Quack. 2012. Non-religiosity, Identity, and Ritual Panel Session. Hungarian Culture Foundation, Budapest, Hungary: NSRN. http://nsrn.net/1523-2/.

  • Cotter, Christopher R., and David G. Robertson. 2016. Introduction: The World Religions Paradigm in Contemporary Religious Studies. In After World Religions: Reconstructing Religious Studies, ed. Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson, 1–20. Abingdon/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalferth, Ingolf U. 2010. Post-secular Society: Christianity and the Dialectics of the Secular. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78(2): 317–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davie, Grace. 2007. Vicarious Religion: A Methodological Challenge. In Everyday Religion: Observing Modern Religious Lives, ed. Nancy T. Ammerman, 21–36. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2008. From Believing without Belonging to Vicarious Religion: Understanding the Patterns of Religion in Modern Europe. In Role of Religion in Modern Societies, 165–176. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012. Belief and Unbelief: Two Sides of a Coin. Approaching Religion 2(1): 3–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. by Steven F. Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul PLC.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fitzgerald, Timothy. 2000. The Ideology of Religious Studies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2007. Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: A Critical History of Religion and Related Categories. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garling, Stephanie. 2013. Approaching Religion through Linguistics: Methodological Thoughts on a Linguistic Analysis of ‘Religion’ in Political Communication. Approaching Religion 3(1): 16–24.

    Google Scholar 

  • Habgood, John. 2000. Varieties of Unbelief. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hervieu-Léger, Danièle. 2000. Religion As a Chain of Memory. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • King, Richard. 1999. Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and the “Mystic East”. London/New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klug, Petra. 2017. Varieties of Nonreligion: Why Some People Criticize Religion, While Others Just Don’t Care. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 223–241. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knott, Kim. 1998. Issues in the Study of Religions and Locality. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 10: 279–290.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. The Location of Religion: A Spatial Analysis. London\Oakville: Equinox.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2009. From Locality to Location and Back Again: A Spatial Journey in the Study of Religion. Religion 39(2): 154–160. doi:10.1016/j.religion.2009.01.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. The Secular Sacred: In-between or Both/and? In Social Identities Between the Sacred and the Secular, ed. Abby Day, Giselle Vincett, and Christopher R. Cotter, 201–221. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knott, Kim, Elizabeth Poole, and Teemu Taira. 2013. Media Portrayals of Religion and the Secular Sacred: Representation and Change. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee, Lois. 2010. “‘Indifference’ May Be Church’s Best Hope.” The Guardian, October 11, sec. Comment is free. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2010/oct/11/indifference-church-best-hope.

  • ———. 2012a. “Being Secular: Toward Separate Sociologies of Secularity, Nonreligion and Epistemological Culture.” Unpublished PhD Thesis. Cambridge: University of Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2012b. Research Note: Talking about a Revolution: Terminology for the New Field of Non-Religion Studies. Journal of Contemporary Religion 27(1): 129–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. Secular or Nonreligious? Investigating and Interpreting Generic ‘not Religious’ Categories and Populations. Religion 44(3): 466–482. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2014.904035.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2017. Religion, Difference and Indifference. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 107–127. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin, Craig. 2010. Masking Hegemony: A Genealogy of Liberalism, Religion and the Private Sphere. Oakville, CT: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Masuzawa, Tomoko. 2005. The Invention of World Religions; Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • McCutcheon, Russell T. 1997. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKearney, Patrick. 2011. “Heard the One About the Pope? Sadly, Yes.” The Guardian, June 21, sec. Comment is free. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/jun/21/stand-up-comedy-religion.

  • Meulemann, Heiner. 2004. Enforced Secularization - Spontaneous Revival? Religious Belief, Unbelief, Uncertainty and Indifference in East and West European Countries 1991–1998. European Sociological Review 20(1): 47–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Moberg, Marcus. 2013. First-, Second-, and Third-Level Discourse Analytic Approaches in the Study of Religion: Moving from Meta-Theoretical Reflection to Implementation in Practice. Religion 43(1): 4–25. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2013.742742.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nash, David. 2017, Genealogies of Indifference? New Theoretical Thoughts on the History and Creation of Narratives Surrounding Christianity, Secularism and Indifference. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 32–49. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Owen, Suzanne. 2011. The World Religions Paradigm: Time for a Change. Arts & Humanities in Higher Education 10(3): 253–268.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Palmer, Neil, eds. 2007. Memories of Nicolson Street Church, the Community Centre & the South Side. Edinburgh: South Side Community Centre.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pasquale, Frank L. 2012. The Social Science of Secularity. Free Inquiry 33(2): 17–23.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pinkerton, Roy M. 2012. Kirk o’Field and the Churches of Edinburgh’s South Side. Edinburgh: Roy M. Pinkerton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Quack, Johannes. 2014. Outline of a Relational Approach to ‘Nonreligion. Method &Theory in the Study of Religion 26(4–5): 439–469. doi:10.1163/15700682-12341327.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Quack, Johannes, and Cora Schuh. 2017. Embedded Indifference and Ways to Research It. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 259–269. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2009. The Discourse-Historical Approach. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 87–121. London: SAGE.

    Google Scholar 

  • Remmel, Atko. 2017. Religion, Interrupted? Observations on Religious Indifference in Estonia. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 128–147. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schuh, Cora, Marian Burchardt, and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr. 2012. Contested Secularities: Religious Minorities and Secular Progressivism in the Netherlands. Journal of Religion in Europe 5(3): 349–383. doi:10.1163/18748929-00503002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siegers, Pascal. 2017. Religious Indifference and Religious Rites of Passage. In Religious Indifference: New Perspectives from Studies on Secularization and Nonreligion, ed. Johannes Quack and Cora Schuh, 176–197. Wiesbaden: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith, Jonathan Z. 1978. Map Is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religion. Leiden: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1998. Religion, Religions, Religious. In Critical Terms for Religious Studies, ed. Mark C. Taylor, 269–284. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stausberg, Michael. 2011. Free-Listing. In The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion, ed. Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler, 245–255. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Strenski, Ivan. 2003. Why It Is Better to Know Some of the Questions than All of the Answers. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15: 169–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stringer, Martin D. 2013. Discourses of Religious Diversity: Explorations in an Urban Ecology. Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Taira, Teemu. 2013. Making Space for Discursive Study in Religious Studies. Religion 43(1): 26–45. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2013.742744.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Voas, David. 2009. The Rise and Fall of Fuzzy Fidelity in Europe. European Sociological Review 25(2): 155–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallis, Simeon. 2014. Ticking ‘No Religion’: A Case Study Amongst ‘young nones’. Diskus: The Journal of the British Association for the Study of Religions 16(2): 70–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Williams, Andrew Zak. 2011. “Faith No More.” New Statesman, July 25. http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2011/07/god-evidence-believe-world.

  • Woodhead, Linda. 2012. “Strategic and Tactical Religion.” Paper presented at the Sacred Practices of Everyday Life Conference, 1–15. Edinburgh: Religion and Society. Available at http://www.religionandsociety.org.uk/attachments/files/1337692875_Woodhead-Tactical%20Religion-Edinburgh%20May%202012.pdf.

  • Wood, Matthew, and Véronique Altglas. 2010. Reflexivity, Scientificity and the Sociology of Religion: Pierre Bourdieu in Debate. Nordic Journal of Religion & Society 23(1): 9–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerman, Phil. 2010. Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lancaster University, B Floor, County South, LA1 4YD, Lancaster, UK

    Christopher R. Cotter

Authors
  1. Christopher R. Cotter
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Christopher R. Cotter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Johannes Quack

  2. Emmy Noether-Project “The Diversity of Nonreligion”, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Cora Schuh

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Cotter, C.R. (2017). A Discursive Approach to ‘Religious Indifference’: Critical Reflections from Edinburgh’s Southside. In: Quack, J., Schuh, C. (eds) Religious Indifference. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48476-1_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48476-1_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48474-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48476-1

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation