Short description:

The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Indigenous Religions is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and Indigenous studies, the handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as sociology, anthropology, history and politics.

Long description:

Exciting developments in research among, with and by Indigenous scholars and communities are enriching a wide range of disciplines, methodologies and trans-disciplinary conversations. This growing field offers important insights and provocations about methods and approaches. Key issues such as relationality, decolonisation, research ethics, pedagogy and collaboration necessarily require improvements both in scholarly description and in scholarly practice. Similarly, critical themes for Indigenous people intersect strongly both with recent scholarly ?turns?, such as embodiment, gender, performance, place, ontology, and materiality. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Indigenous Religions reflects on appropriate approaches and methods with over 28 chapters by a team of international contributors. The Handbook is divided into three parts:

• Core themes and critical issues in research and debate about Indigenous Religions


• Disciplines and methods, focusing on ways in which researchers gain and share understanding about Indigenous religions


• Recent scholarship about broad regions of the world

Within these sections, central issues, debates and problems are examined, including cosmology, diaspora, bodies and materiality, witchcraft and divination, ritual studies, ethnography and fieldwork, heritage studies, ecology, feminist methodologies, decolonial methods and Indigenist methods, research ethics, activism, health, and peoplehood, kinship and relations. The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Indigenous Religions is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and Indigenous studies, and the handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields such as sociology, anthropology, history and politics.

Table of Contents:

Introduction  Part 1: Critical Issues  1. Cosmologies  2. Cosmologies and Land  3. Indigenous Religions, Diaspora and Reverse Diaspora  4. Personhood, Kinship, and Relations  5. Bodies and Materiality  6. Genders  7. Trance and Possession Practices  8. Decolonial and Indigenist Approaches  Part 2: Disciplines and Methods  9. Religious Studies  10. Ethnography  11. Ritual Studies  12. History  13. Material Culture  14. Museum Studies  15. Literature  16. Ethnomusicology  17. Film Studies  18. M?ori Philosophy  19. Research Ethics  20. Indigenous Methodologies and Pedagogical Challenges  Part 3: Regions  21. Africa  22. Australia  23. The Arctic, Sub-Arctic, and North Asia  24. India  25. Mesoamerica/Central America  26. North America  27. Oceania  28. South America