DSI Affiliate Dr Eleanor Power's research was recently showcased as part of the LSE 2021 Research Excellence Framework.
Elly's outstanding research into the role of religion in society was inspired by an interest in the meaning of religion for individuals, and its subsequent impact on how people relate to one another.
"These are old questions", Elly explains, "but I was bringing a new tool to the task—social network analysis—and doing so in a setting that was very different from the Judeo-Christian focus of previous work— multireligious India. Even where people don’t see themselves as part of a religious “congregation,” do we still see that ritual participants form something that we could call a religious community? What consequences does a person’s religious action have for how others perceive them, and the relationships they form with them?"
Watch Elly discuss her research in this video.
Find more information on this research in these articles:
· 2018. Eleanor A. Power. Collective Ritual and Social Support Networks in Rural South India. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285(1879):20180023. Code.
· 2017. Eleanor A. Power. Social Support Networks and Religiosity in Rural South India. Nature Human Behaviour. 1:0057. Code.
· 2017. Eleanor A. Power. Discerning Devotion: Testing the Signaling Theory of Religion. Evolution and Human Behavior. 38(1):82-91.