Folkloric vs. Vernacular. Reconsidering Old and New Approaches to Ethnographic Study of Religion

The paper attempts to introduce the “vernacular religion” paradigm in vogue among Anglophone scholars, explaining some theoretical problems bound therein, as far as its points of weakness. Perspectives on old paradigms such as “popular religion” and “folk religion” will be offered, in order to clarify the ways they are able to interpret specific hegemony aspects of religious life of European communities – in particular with regards to the processes of hybridization, heritage and transformation of local devotions and rituals. From the discussion of the different paradigms the way in which a terminological issue can modify ethnography and methodology will emerge, thereby showing the advantage of maintaining the term “folk religion”, or “folkloric religion”, because it seems to better express the dialectical relationships, and the gaps between the levels of culture, while at the same time revealing the power issue and the political nature of anthropological research.