Book: Methods for the Study of Religious Change
Chapter: Introduction
Blurb:
If scholars face the task to make sense of people making sense of their lives, then researcher and researched meet on common ground. Two worldviews encounter. Once the two sides are identified as worldviews, our perception of the methodological dynamics of the meeting between researcher and researched takes a new dimension. The usual contrast between science and religion becomes less important. Scholars and their subjects, who for a long time were considered to belong to mutually exclusive categories, can now come closer to each other. Common characteristics and interests can be uncovered from the deeper layers in which they were hidden. The implications of this new perspective can begin to be considered. The parameters start moving.