| Abstract
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In this introductory essay to the theme issue “Intersections of Discourses – Pliable Body, the Making of Religion, and Social Definition,” we sketch the main contours of thinking about human bodiliness in religion. This relates both to the way in which bodies and ways of bodiliness feature in religious discourse and practice but also to the way in which scholarly theorising deal with human bodies in religion. Our argument is based on two main points of departure, namely that bodies are constructed products of discourse and that “religion” is a set of somaticising practices. After a long neglect, the body was rediscovered as a core topic for religious studies in the wake of four intersecting force fields, namely the interest in human bodies in anthropology and sociology, the intellectual legacy of Michel Foucault, the emergence of spirituality as lived religion, and interest in religious experience as study field. In sum, it is argued that the essays presented here constitute a reminder that religious discourses are not languages “out of this world”, but are very much human languages effecting human intentional (and unintentional) outcomes in interactional social and cultural settings. In this introductory essay to the theme issue “Intersections of Discourses – Pliable Body, the Making of Religion, and Social Definition,” we sketch the main contours of thinking about human bodiliness in religion. This relates both to the way in which bodies and ways of bodiliness feature in religious discourse and practice but also to the way in which scholarly theorising deal with human bodies in religion. Our argument is based on two main points of departure, namely that bodies are constructed products of discourse and that “religion” is a set of somaticising practices. After a long neglect, the body was rediscovered as a core topic for religious studies in the wake of four intersecting force fields, namely the interest in human bodies in anthropology and sociology, the intellectual legacy of Michel Foucault, the emergence of spirituality as lived religion, and interest in religious experience as study field. In sum, it is argued that the essays presented here constitute a reminder that religious discourses are not languages “out of this world”, but are very much human languages effecting human intentional (and unintentional) outcomes in interactional social and cultural settings.
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