This project will create the world’s largest, most collaborative, epistemically diverse, open-access mixed data set on contemporary religion. The resulting infrastructure will create a framework to enable the exploration of how contemporary religion can contribute to or detract from personal and societal wellbeing. The data set will also provide an important new resource for policy makers and individuals, enabling more informed decisions about how to engage with religious groups and the parameters for promoting religious freedom.
To do so, we will create a New Religiosity Poll (NRP) for the Database of Religious History (DRH), enabling quantitative analysis verified with qualitative expertise. By combining archival data, ethnographic fieldwork and a citizen science paradigm, we will create 400 entries of contemporary religious groups within Christian, Dharmic, Japanese, Islamic and esoteric traditions. Each entry will have hundreds of quantitative data points, backed up by thick qualitative notes, focusing on variables relating to prosociality, wellbeing and religious freedom. The complete data set will unlock the potential of digital humanities to better promote human flourishing with an evidence-based engagement with contemporary religiosity.
