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This truly unique, global and multidisciplinary reference work offers a comprehensive and analytically rigorous examination of the multifaceted relationship between religious phenomena and processes of social transformation. While the study of religion has long acknowledged its capacity to preserve existing social arrangements, this volume focusses on the equally significant ways in which religious ideas, institutions, actors, and practices motivate and shape diverse forms of social change across historical periods and cultural contexts.
Bringing together interdisciplinary perspectives, the De Gruyter Handbook of Religion and Social Change provides a systematic account of how religion intersects with political institutions, economic systems, and cultural formations. The contributions challenge reductive assumptions that cast religion primarily as a conservative force, demonstrating instead its dynamic and sometimes ambiguous role in both stabilizing and transforming social orders.
This informative resource will benefit scholars and students of Religious Studies, Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Political Science, and Colonial Studies seeking a nuanced understanding of religion’s complex place within social change.
Jeyoul Choi is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida (UF). He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from UF. His research and teaching interests encompass Christianity, religion in the Americas, globalization and transnationalism, (de-)postcolonial studies, race and ethnicity, and the sociology of religion. His first book project, based on ethnographic research, examines the continuities and changes within Korean Protestantism among U.S. immigrants, situated within the broader context of U.S. religious history and global Christianity.
Victoria Machado is an assistant professor of Environmental Studies at Rollins College where she teaches Nature Spirituality and Environmental Action & Florida’s Sacred Waters. She holds a Ph.D. in religious studies with a dual specialization in Religion in the Americas and Religion & Nature from the University of Florida. Drawing from her connections as a former environmental organizer, Victoria’s research focuses on the environmental humanities and the spiritual dimensions of Florida’s environmentalists, especially surrounding the subject of water. Passionate about publicly engaged scholarship, Victoria is part of the Florida Humanities Speakers Bureau and gives talks on Florida’s Sacred Waters.
Nelson Marín Alarcón is an Adjunct Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Chile. He holds a Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Florida, specializing in the intersection of religion, politics, and society in Latin America. His most recent research focuses on the role of faith-based organizations in the design and implementation of social policies in post-dictatorship, Chile. He is currently the principal researcher for the Fondecyt Initiation Project 11251638, "Religious Activism, Gender Violence, and Public Policy: Analysis of Evangelical Faith-based Organizations in Santiago, Chile", funded by the National Agency for Research and Development.
Anna Peterson is Cronin Term Professor and Distinguished Teaching Scholar in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida, where she also directs the Sustainability Studies Program. Her teaching and research focus on social and environmental ethics, animal studies, and the role of religion in social change. Her newest book is With God on Our Side: Religion, Social Movements, and Social Change (2024). Other books include Works Righteousness: Material Practice in Ethical Theory (2020) and Cats and Conservationists: The Debate Over Who Owns the Outdoors, with Dara Wald (2020).