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Making Sense of Surveys and Censuses: Issues in Religious Self-identification

Day, Abby, Lee, Lois (2014) Making Sense of Surveys and Censuses: Issues in Religious Self-identification. Religion, 44 (3). pp. 345-356. (doi:10.1080/0048721X.2014.929833) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:60430)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2014.929833

Abstract

Censuses and surveys shape decisions, discourse and debates about people and their lived environments. The outcomes, in the case of a census, inform governments about resource distribution but also shape people's self-understanding about who they are and where they may be going. How people self-identify on censuses and surveys produces certain types of knowledge. This introduction emphasises the impact of those instruments on knowledge production and how numbers can be employed, often anecdotally, to further interests and claims. The way academics use and interpret such instruments has ethical and normative dimensions: numbers are not neutral but shape and are shaped by perceptions and identities. This introduction to a thematic issue of Religion introduces the contributing authors' diverse – historical, qualitative and quantitative – approaches that work together to produce their own kind of multi-disciplinary, academically located knowledge.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/0048721X.2014.929833
Uncontrolled keywords: Key Words: census, survey, self-identification, ethics, knowledge
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion
B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Lois Lee
Date Deposited: 17 Feb 2017 10:28 UTC
Last Modified: 17 Aug 2022 11:01 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/60430 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Day, Abby.

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Lee, Lois.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0568-2958
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