ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a relational approach to nonreligion. The first part of the chapter offers a relational definition of nonreligion and positions our approach in relation to similar research. We introduce the notion of a religion-related surrounding of a religious field and discuss possible ways in which the borders of a religious field can be contested in other fields as well as transformed, and the extent to which a religion-related surrounding can show features of a genuine field. We further speak of religio-normativity as a concept that helps to understand nonreligious activism. The second part of the chapter offers conceptual tools for analyzing and differentiating different modes of nonreligion. More specifically, it points to the religious (and nonreligious) others such modes relate to, the foci that orient these relations, and the different kinds of relations that are established. The different relations that mark individual nonreligious positions thereby constitute complex webs or “assemblages.” Last, but not least, the chapter addresses the tensions between competing nonreligious positions and the themes in which they are expressed.
