This book focuses primarily on what we have termed the 'Quaker Condition'. It looks sociologically at the condition of present-day British Quakerism. This original and innovative collection contributes to several different, though obviously connected, fields within the study of religion. It operates on five levels. In the first place, the volume is the first to represent, substantially, the contribution of social science to the study of Quakerism and therefore provides useful comparative material for those whose focus is on other faith groups. Second, the book focuses largely on British Quakerism and so enriches the pool of resources relating to the sociology of British religion and British culture more generally Third, there are very few sociological volumes dedicated to the analysis of a single faith group. Fourth, the book represents an in-depth study of a liberal faith group, when liberal religion is the focus of much scholarly debate at present particularly with reference to the secularisation thesis. The study of British Quakerism is especially fascinating in this regard, given how the group can be described almost as hyper- or ultra-liberal, prefiguring many of the developments which may overtake currently more conservative groups. Fifth, the volume represents a particularly collective way of working of interest to all those concerned with the methodology of social research, with the design and construction of the volume jointly agreed by all the authors. Regular meetings of the group and a conference based on these chapters has culminated in a book far more interwoven and layered than a typical 'edited collection.'
About the Author: Pink Dandelion directs the work of the Centre for Postgraduate Quaker Studies, Woodbrooke and the University of Birmingham. He edits Quaker Studies and acts as Series Editor for the Edwin Mellen series in Quaker Studies. His books include The Quakers: a very short introduction (2008), (with Jackie Leach Scully) Good and Evil: Quaker perspectives (2007), Introduction to Quakerism (2007), The Liturgies of Quakerism (2005), The Creation of Quaker Theory (2004), the co-authored Towards Tragedy/Reclaiming Hope (2004) and The Sociological Analysis of the Theology of Quakers: the silent revolution (1996). Peter Collins teaches Anthropology at Durham University. His interests include religion, aesthetics, space and place, and qualitative methodology. He has recently co-edited Locating the Field: space place and context in anthropology (Berg, 2006), with Simon Coleman; Reading Religion in Text and Context: reflections of faith and practice in religious materials (Ashgate 2006), with Elisabeth Arweck; and Religion, Identity and Change: perspectives on global transformations (ed.). Ashgate (2004), with Simon Coleman. He is preparing Continuity and Change: Bolton Quakers 1650-1990 (Edwin Mellen) for publication and Keeping an Open 'I': memory and experience as resources in ethnography (co-edited with Anselma Gallinat) is in press.