Autoethnography as a research method in the study of religion

Abstract

After the period of domination of quantitative research in Polish sociology of religion one can observe a growing interest in developing qualitative analyzes. The turn towards an interpretative approach has reasons both in the transformation of modern societies (modernization, individualization, mobility, interest in everyday life etc.), as well as transformations of religion itself (subjectivization, privatization, respirytualization, orientation in the search for sensations, etc.). The subject of the research is the use of autoethnography in the study of religious phenomena. The author analyzes the area of possible applications of this method, the expected benefits of using this perspective, but also its limitations. In her deliberations, she refers to two examples – works on religion available on the Polish publishing market in which this method was used.