---
title: Anthropology of Religion
description: Anthropology of Religion explores how human societies construct, practice, and experience religious beliefs and rituals. Learners will understand the social functions of myth, ritual, sacred spaces, and the relationship between religious practices and cultural identity across diverse global communities.
category: humanities
subcategory: religious-studies
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/anthropology-of-religion
---

# Anthropology of Religion

Anthropology of Religion explores how human societies construct, practice, and experience religious beliefs and rituals. Learners will understand the social functions of myth, ritual, sacred spaces, and the relationship between religious practices and cultural identity across diverse global communities.

## Available Resources

2 Books • 1 Websites

## Websites

### 1. AnthroSource

The American Anthropological Association's journal portal on Wiley, hosting American Anthropologist and the association's section journals. Useful for searching peer-reviewed research and review articles in biological anthropology, though most full text requires institutional access or AAA membership.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/

**Tags:** anthropology journals, biological anthropology, peer-reviewed research, american anthropological association

### 2. Open Encyclopedia of Anthropology: Religion entries

Open-access, peer-reviewed encyclopedia whose Religion section collects long-form entries by specialists on animism, magic, divination, Islam, Buddhism, Haitian Vodou, cargo cults, death and ethics. Readers can trace each concept's debates and follow the bibliographies into the primary literature.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.anthroencyclopedia.com/article-browse?field_subject_area_tid=3

## Podcasts

### 1. SAPIENS: A Podcast for Everything Human

**Author:** SAPIENS

What makes you … you? And who tells what stories and why? In the SAPIENS podcast, listeners will hear a range of human stories: from the origins of the chili pepper to how prosecutors decide someone is a criminal to stolen skulls from Iceland. Join SAPIENS on our latest journey to explore what it means to be human.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** en-us | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.sapiens.org

**Tags:** anthropology, cultural-anthropology, archaeology, human-origins

## Books

### 1. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

**Author:** Émile Durkheim (trans. Karen E. Fields)

Durkheim's 1912 study of Australian totemism, in Karen Fields's 1995 English translation. It argues that the sacred/profane division and collective ritual express society itself. Readers gain the functionalist framework that later theorists of ritual and religion build on or attack.

**Difficulty:** Advanced | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0029079373?tag=edmonddante07-20

### 2. Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion

**Author:** Arthur C. Lehmann, James E. Myers

Anthology of classic and contemporary anthropological essays on the supernatural, covering ritual, myth, shamanism, witchcraft, sorcery, healing, death, and new religious movements. Readers meet the field's major theorists and learn to compare belief systems across cultures.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0767416929?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, religious-studies

### 3. The Forest of Symbols

**Author:** Victor Turner

Collected essays from Turner's fieldwork among the Ndembu of Zambia, analysing ritual symbols, colour classification, divination, and rites of passage. Introduces liminality and the multivocal symbol, concepts readers can apply to interpreting ritual in any society.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0801491010?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, religious-studies

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