Albert Piette and lived (non-)religion: Conceptual and methodological considerations

Abstract

This article considers how the work of Albert Piette can enhance a sociological understanding of religion as lived in everyday life. Although Piette is critical of sociologists in La Religion de près (1999), his work resonates with scholarship on ‘lived religion’ by contemporary sociologists of religion. This article locates points of overlap and divergence between Piette and scholars of lived religion, and then turns its attention towards the emergent study of lived non-religion. It concludes that while Piette’s micro-level approach to religious life has limitations for sociologists, he still offers conceptual and methodological perspectives that contribute to research on lived religion and non-religion. To demonstrate this argument, Piette’s work is drawn into a discussion of the Nonreligion in a Complex Future’s Community Gardens research project, which explores how religious and non-religious actors enact and construct their (non-)religion in community gardens.