The chapters in this volume cover a lot of ground. The authors draw from different theoretical and methodological approaches and apply these varied lenses to a range of empirical and substantive topics, from totalitarianism in China to the religious beliefs and practices of descendants of Holocaust survivors. However, what unites these studies is their interpretive approach to the study of religion (see: Schwartz-Shea and Yanow, 2013; Yanow and Schwartz-Shea, 2014 for useful overviews). Interpretive approaches are centrally concerned with meaning and meaning-making; “Humans making meanings out of the meaning-making of other humans … this is the heart of what it means to be an interpretivist” (Pachirat, 2014). Interpretive scholars document and analyze the meanings people give to objects, experiences, events, actions, practices, and people (including themselves) as well as the process of meaning-making – how meanings are constructed, established, transmitted, debated, contested, and changed. Interpretive scholars also examine the implications of meaning, documenting how and in what ways meanings matter. Meaning, from this perspective, whether expressed via discourse, ritual, or emotion, not only reflects but constitutes social realities and social action. Finally, interpretive approaches share core assumptions about meaning-making, analyzing meaning as intersubjective, relational, and situated in particular communities and contexts. As a result, interpretively inclined researchers emphasize the importance of scholarly reflexivity – a commitment rooted in the acknowledgement that scholarly work is itself an act of world-construction, one that intersects in myriad ways with the interpretive work of the people and groups we study.

Beyond these commonalities, however, we find many ways to enter into the interpretive study of religion. Interpretive work spans disciplines – from sociology to anthropology, history to the field of religious studies – and can fall under a range of theoretical and substantive umbrellas, including cultural sociology (Edgell, 2012), symbolic interaction (Collins, 2011; Tavory, 2016), pragmatism (Smilde, 2007), or the study of “lived religion” (McGuire, 2008; Ammerman, 2016; Hall, 2020). Interpretive studies also span levels of analysis. Meaning and meaning-making can be examined at the individual level or the macro level, from individual narratives and the micro-situational dynamics of constructing shared meanings to the discursive construction of religion as codified in federal laws or religious texts. Interpretive scholars, as a result, make use of a wide range of methodological approaches.