ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author shows how the anthropological study of religion has undergone some radical changes from the composite picture of a few decades ago that he have just painted. He aims to show why current research has been significant in bringing the anthropology of religion once more to the fore, a kind of return of the analytically and ethnographically repressed New theoretical and methodological approaches have emerged; scholars now focus on a wider range of religious activities than in the past; historical influences are often considered alongside ethnographic observations. Much of the revival of the subfield that has occurred in the last two or three decades follows the transformation of religion itself in many societies, as religious themes have become the object of political, social, and cultural concern across large parts of the world.
