Religion and Touch

Religion is, at its very root, a sensual and often tactile affair.From genuflections, prayer, dance, and eating, to tattooing, wearing certain garments or objects, lighting candles and performing other rituals, religions of all descriptions involve regular bodily commitments which are mediated by acts of touch. Contributors to this volume have isolated the ‘sense of touch’ from the general sensorium as a particular ‘sense tool’ from which to creatively innovate and operationalize fresh concepts, theories, and methods in relation to a diverse range of case studies in Africa, South America, Polynesia, Europe, and South and Southeast Asia.Common and overlapping themes include how touch mediates direct physical (often deliberate) contact between physical bodies (human and other than human) and the things that are crafted, blessed, related with, engaged with, or worn.Understanding touch as the vehicle to alternative forms of knowledge-making in specific religious contexts is the driving for