ABSTRACT

Studies of religion frequently focus on religious content (e.g. theology, texts, etc.), individuals’ beliefs and practices (e.g. prayer, participation, etc.) or on religious organizations (e.g. congregations, denominations, faith traditions, etc.). While they may shift across levels, scholars’ approaches generally focus on studying characteristics of these texts/people/groupings. Other chapters of this book detail many approaches for capturing relevant characteristics of these and a variety of other questions-including how those characteristics change over time, how they relate to other outcomes, and how these differing levels of analysis interact with each other (e.g. how a single mosque’s available activities relates to its adherents’ religious commitment or reported religious importance). A common thread in each of these is that the scholar’s gaze is focused on particular entities as the units of analysis-whether tenets, individuals or collectivities. To represent any of these entities we can use single points (see Figure 2.14.1 )—known as ‘ nodes ’ in networks terminology and vary the points’ traits to correspond to various node characteristics.