ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the particular challenges of doing the ethnography of religious worlds, lives, and communities. Ethnographic fieldwork is the central methodology for cultural anthropologists, and is also widely practiced in religious studies and the sociology of religion. Anthropology's critical turn has instilled the importance of doing ethnography with a reflexive eye turned on own practices and decision-making. All religious ethnography must confront the "problem of belief". There are four dominant postures that might choose from or seek to integrate: methodological atheism, agnosticism, ludism, and theism. Each posture has distinct recommendations for how ethnography should be done and implications for engaging the day-to-day labor of fieldwork. Each posture also highlights the tight coupling of method and theory. Ultimately, this chapter demonstrates the need to be conscientious religious ethnographers. Different ethnographers frame the same methodology in different ways. Three typical framings are science, art, and craft. While some identify with only one of these, others combine two or all three.
