The Structure of Cognitive Minorities: Evangelicals in Leipzig and Unitarians in Dallas

本研究项目的目的是通过对“认知少数群体”的比较分析，确定人们如何保持一种与其社会环境中普遍认为理所当然的世界观明显偏离的世界观。使用一个互补的研究设计，我的目标是重建一个独特的宗教信徒（福音派新教徒）在一个强烈的世俗城市（莱比锡）定义其现实，以及如何做到这一点的一组怀疑论者和寻求者（一神论者）在一个城市的特点是福音派的灵性（达拉斯）。采用基于知识社会学的理论视角，我假设现实的定义是通过意识的主观层面和制度的客观层面以及意义的共享结构之间的永久互动来构建和维持的。为了调查这种相互作用的民族志研究设计与扎根理论的方法，结合参与观察民族志访谈。根据目前宗教社会学方面的辩论，该项目的目的首先是从微观社会学的角度对评估城市、宗教和现代社会的关系作出贡献，其次是对宗教社会学研究新方法的进一步概念发展作出贡献。

The objective of this research project is to ascertain - by means of a comparative analysis of 'cognitive minorities' - how people maintain a view of the world that deviates significantly from the one generally taken for granted in their social environment. Using a complementary research design I aim to reconstruct how a distinctive group of religious believers (Evangelical Protestants) in a strongly secular city (Leipzig) defines its reality and how this is done by a group of skeptics and seekers (Unitarians) in a city characterized by evangelical spirituality (Dallas). Adopting a theoretical perspective based on the sociology of knowledge, I assume that definitions of reality are constructed and maintained through permanent interaction between the subjective level of consciousness and the objective level of institutions and shared structures of meaning. For investigating this interaction an ethnographic research design with a Grounded Theory methodology is chosen that combines participant observation with ethnographic interviews. Following up current debates in the sociology of religion, the project is intended, first of all, to make an empirically-based micro-sociological contribution to evaluate the relationship of city, religion and modern society and in this way, secondly, to contribute to the further conceptual development of new approaches to research on the sociology of religion.