The Discursive Study of Religion, Critical Realism, and the Social Reality of ‘Religion’

This article expands on the recently started debate in Method & Theory in the Study of Religion (2024) on the relationship between discursive and critical realist approaches in the study of religion. It aims to steer future debates on this topic in more concrete directions by focusing on four interrelated themes worthy of further attention: 1) how to approach “discourse,” the analysis of discourse, and relationship between the discursive and the non-discursive; 2) how to approach the relationship between “word and world”; 3) how discursive approaches would position themselves towards critical realist claims about the ability of generic definitions of religion to “accurately” describe “ontic” actual social realities; 4) and how the “social reality” of religion could be approached and studied from the perspective of a textual approach in the discursive study of religion