This edited volume deploys digital ethnography in varied contexts to explore the cultural roles of mobile apps that focus on religious practice and communities, as well as those used for religious purposes (whether or not they were originally developed for that purpose). Combining analyses of local contexts with insights and methods from the global subfield of digital anthropology, the contributors here recognize the complex ways that in-app and on-ground worlds interact in a wide range of communities and traditions. While some of the case studies emphasize the cultural significance of use in local contexts and relationships to pre-existing knowledge networks and/or non-digital relationships of power, others explore the globalizing and democratizing influences of mobile apps as communication technologies. From Catholic confession apps to Jewish Kaddish assistance apps and Muslim halal food apps, readers will see how religious-themed mobile apps create complex sites for potential new forms of religious expression, worship, discussion, and practices.

Autorentext

Jacqueline H. Fewkes is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University, USA. Dr. Fewkes is also the author of the books Locating Maldivian Women's Mosques in Global Discourses (2019), and Trade and Contemporary Society along the Silk Road: An Ethno-history of Ladakh (2008).

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Piety in the Pocket: An Introduction1.1 Histories/Contexts1.2 Blurring Boundaries: Ubiquitous Mobile Apps1.3 Anthropological Perspectives1.4 Book OrganizationPart I: Community, Contexts, and PracticeChapter 2: Sufi Remembrance Practices in the Meditation Marketplace of a Mobile App2.1 Introduction2.2 A Mobile Meditation Marketplace2.3 A Meditation Labyrinth: Labeling, Categorizing, and Experimental Encounters2.4 From Ongrount to In-App, From Dhikr to 'meditation'2.5 Concluding ReflectionsChapter 3: An Ambivalent Jewishness: Half Shabbos, the Shabbos App, and Modern Orthodoxy3.1 Introduction3.2 Contemporary Jewish Movements3.3 The Sabbath and the "half-Sabbath"3.4 Modern Orthodoxy and Technology3.5 A Necessarily Abbreviated Case Study - the Shabbos AppChapter 4: From Self-Learning Pathshala to Pilgrimage App: Studying the Expanding World of Jain Religious Apps4.1 Introduction: Jains and digital media4.2 Sense and method in studying religious apps4.3 Challenge one: sampling for an app corpus4.4 Challenge two: structuring the corpus4.5 Why app? Jain apps in context4.6 Themes in app development motivation4.7 Ethnography as reality check4.8 Ethnography to contextualize Jainn app use4.9 Concluding thoughts: Towards and anthropology of mobile applications4.10 Concluding thoughts: On religious apps4.11 RecommendationsChapter 5: Latinx Muslims "Like" One Another: An Ethnographic Exploration of Social Media and the Formation of Latinx Muslim Community5.1 Introduction5.2 Background, definitions, previous literature, and methodology5.3 LMFG cosmopolitan identity construction themes5.4 Everyday piety5.5 Digital visual culture5.6 The Latinax Muslim mythos5.7 The global umma5.8 Politics5.9 ConclusionPart II: Authority, Subjectivity, and Networks of KnowledgeChapter 6: "Siri is Alligator Halal?": Mobile Apps, Food Practices and Religious Authority in American Muslim Communities6.1 Methods, or what does a digital ethnographer do?6.2 Muslims and food practices6.3 Authority and community in the Muslim American digital context6.4 Scan Halal, a food finder app case study6.5 Zabihah, a food site finder app case study6.6 ConclusionsAnd, is alligator halal?Chapter 7: iPrayer: catholic Payer Apps and Twenty-first Centry Catholic Subjectivities7.1 Confession app: lay Catholic authority7.2 Breads app: rote creativity7.3 Pray app: Sacred pragmatism7.4 ConclusionChapter 8: Mobile Apps and Religious Processes among Pentecostal Charismatic Christians in Zimbabwe8.1 The digital and being human: beyond the binary8.2 OMG's religious-themed mobile applications8.3 Online religious communities8.4 Religious communities, identities and personhood8.5 In-app charisma, authority and surveillance8.7 Rituals8.8 ConclusionPart III: Space, Mobility, and ImmaterialityChapter 9: Medieval "Miracle of Equilibrium" or Contemporary Shrine of "Rock-Hard Faith"?: The Role of Digital media in Guiding Visitors' Experiences of Rocamadour, France9.1 Introduction9.2 Landscape and Rocamadour's panorama9.2 The contested image of Rocamadour9.4 A portable panorama: Rocamadour in smartphone apps9.5 Sacralizing the secular9.6 An online oratory9.7 Repercussions and conclusionsChapter 10: Bringing Creation to a Museum near You10.1 The creation museum model10.2 Creationism...