Dr Abby Day is Senior Research Fellow and teaches the Anthropology of Religion She has been conducting qualitative longitudinal research in religion since 2002. Abby is Chair of the British Sociological Association's Sociology of Religion study group, and the only qualitative researcher to be involved as an advisor for the 2011 National Census on questions about religion, ethnicity and identity.

Abby has a successful track record of previous grant awards from the AHRC and ESRC, and her monograph 'Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World' was published by Oxford University Press in 2011.

She is currently Principal Investigator of a two year ESRC-funded project exploring the significance of women in later life for the Church of England, as well as their contribution to civil society.

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Key Publications

Books

• Forthcoming 2013 Day, A. , G. Vincett and Cotter, C. (eds.) August2013 ‘Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular’, Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Day, A. (2011) Believing in Belonging: Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Day, A. (ed.) (2008) Religion and the Individual, Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Day, A. (2008) How to Get Research Published in Journals. 2nd edition, Aldershot: Gower/Ashgate.
• Day, A. (2003) Winning Research Funding. Aldershot: Gower/Ashgate.

Papers

• Day, A. 2013 ‘A longitudinal study of youth and belief: discovering varieties of belief and belonging’ (forthcoming).
• Day, A. 2012 ‘Extraordinary relationality: ancestor veneration in late Euro-American society’, Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, 25 (2), 169-181.
• Edited special issue: Day, A. and Coleman, S. (eds.) 2010 ‘Broadening the Boundaries of Belief', Culture and Religion, 11 (1).
• Voas, D. and Day, A. (2010) ‘Recognizing secular Christians: Toward an unexcluded middle in the study of religion’ The Association of Religion Data Archives Online: http://www.thearda.com/rrh/papers/guidingpapers.asp
• Day, A.  (2010) Propositions and performativity: relocating belief to the social Culture and Religion 11 (1): 9–30.
• Day, A. (2009) ‘Researching Belief Without Asking Religious Questions’, Fieldwork in Religion, 4 (1): 89-106.
• Day, A. (2009) ‘Believing in belonging: an ethnography of young people’s constructions of belief’, Culture and Religion, 10 (3): 263-278.
• Day, A. (2008) ‘Wilfully disempowered: a gendered response to a “fallen world”,’ European Journal of Women’s Studies, 15 (3): 261-276.
• Day, A.  (2005) ‘Doing Theodicy: an Empirical Study of a Women’s Prayer Group,’ Journal of Contemporary Religion, 20 (3): 343-356.
• Day, A. and Lugosi, P. (eds.) (2003) ‘Methods in Practice’, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 3 (1/2).  

Chapters in books

• Day, A. (2012) forthcoming ‘Post-secular Identities: Non-religious Christians’ in the Scripta Donneriani Aboensis
• Day, A. and S. Coleman forthcoming (2012) forthcoming “Secularization” In Oxford Bibliographies Online: Anthropology. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Day, A. (2012) forthcoming ‘Belonging’, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion (VSR), Leiden: Brill.
• Day, A. (2013) forthcoming, ‘Doing Qualitative Longitudinal Religious Research’ in Linda Woodhead (ed.), How to Research Religion: Putting Methods Into Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Day, A. (2012) forthcoming ‘Understanding Generation A’ in Nicola Slee, ed. The Faith Lives of Girls and Women, Aldershot, Ashgate.
• Day, A. (2013) forthcoming, ‘Everyday Ghosts: a Matter of Believing in Belonging’ in Sally Munt, Olu Jenzen, eds. Ashgate Research Companion to Paranormal Cultures, Farnham UK and Burlington, Vermont USA: Ashgate Publishing.
• Day, A. (2010) ‘Believing in belonging’: An exploration of young people’s social contexts and constructions of belief’ in Sylvia Collins-Mayo and Pink Dandelion, Religion and Youth, Aldershot: Ashgate: 97-104
• Voas, D.and Day, A.(2007) ‘Secularity in Great Britain’ pp. 95-112 in Barry A. Kosmin and Ariela Keysar (eds.) Secularism and Secularity: Contemporary International Perspectives. Hartford, CT: Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture. http://www.trincoll.edu/Academics/AcademicResources/values/ISSSC/publications/

Book Reviews:

• Day, A. (2011) ‘Steve Bruce, Secularization, in Defence of an Unfashionable Theory’ Theology
• Day, A. (2007) ‘The Language of Mediums and Psychics: The Social Organization of Everyday Miracles, by Robin Wooffitt’, Sociology, 41 (4).
• Day, A. (2008) ‘Learning Religion: Anthropological Approaches, by Berliner, David and Ramon Sarró (eds.)’. Network, British Sociological Association, Spring 2008.
• Day, A. (2009) ‘Converting cultures; religion, ideology and transformations of modernity by Dennis Washburn and A. Kevin Reinhart (eds)’. Network, British Sociological Association, Spring 2009.

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