Position:
Research Student
Email:
Telephone:
+44 (0)29 208 75169
Title: ‘In True Faith’: the search for authenticity in religious social action.
Subject: The project develops a theoretical framework drawing on Georg Simmel’s sociology of religion. The theory is developed through ethnographic research of a Christian evangelical church looking at how faith is translated into social action.
Supervisors: Professor David Clapham / Dr Richard Gale
Publications:
- (2010) Misunderstanding faith: when ‘capital’ does not fit the ‘spiritual’. The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences vol.5, n.5, pp.179-192.
The paper provides a critique of rational choice theory and sketches a framework for the study of religion building on Georg Simmel’s insights. - (In Press) The enchanting dream of ‘spiritual capital’, Implicit Religion.
The paper analyses critically the re-conceptualisation of ‘spiritual capital’ in UK academic research, away from rational choice theory.
Working Papers:
- ‘Making life sacred’: Rethinking Georg Simmel’s Sociology of Religion.
The paper outlines the notion of ‘sacralisation’ as a process arising from faith. It is part of the theory framing current ethnographic research and is informed by its initial findings. - Shopping for a Church? The role of choice in church-going and church-doing in 21st century Britain.
The paper presents initial findings reflecting on church-doing and church-going questioning the approach of rational choice theory.
Unpublished Dissertation:
- (2009) 'Followers of Jesus': journey into an evangelical Christian church in Wales. Cardiff: Cardiff University.
Research interests:
Georg Simmel, individual religiosity, Christian evangelicalism, religious pluralism, pragmatism
Websites: http://cardiff.academia.edu/FrancescaMontemaggi ; http://paswonky.blogspot.com