CV

Anne Beutter completed her Bachelor’s Degree in the Study of Religions and Sociology at University of Basel and her Master’s Degree in the Study of Religion at University of Leipzig. Her Master’s Thesis concerned the spatial aspects of the establishment of a new religious actor.

In 2015 she was an academic assistant ad interim at the Sub-department of Science of Religion at University of Basel. From 2016 to 2020 she was the academic assistant at the Department for the Study of Religions at University of Lucerne where she works as a Post Doc Researcher and lecturer since February 2021.

In her PHD-Project defended in Dec. 2020 she explores the interrelation of ‘religion’ and ‘the legal’ as an analytical framework. She asks how the legal structures of a religious organisation are embedded in a legally and religiously plural context. As a case of analysis she focuses on the legal practices of a congregation of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast (today: Ghana) and their interaction with African and colonial legal structures. Published open access and with an english Summary as "Religion, Recht und Zugehörigkeit. Rechtspraktiken einer westafrikanischen Kirsche und die Dynamik normativer Ordnungen" V&R, Göttingen, 2022.

In her new project she addresses representations of religious diversity in the study of religions, especially the trajectories and proliferation of a specific type of mappings of religious diversity. Sthe uses these as a lens through which to reflect on  the recent history of Religionswissenschaft as a discipline.

Since 2021 she is one of the speakers of the Workingroup Africa of the DVRW. She was from 2018-2022 the General Secretary of the Swiss Association for the Study of Religions and co-founder of the Netzwerk un-sichtbar, a network of audio guide projects on religion in urban space.

Research

Main areas of study:

• Method and Theory of Religion(s): Religion & Diversity; Religion & Law; History of theoretical aproaches to Religion; Religion & Space; aesthetics of religion; and discourse analysis.
• History of religion(s): Religion in contemporary European contexts; History of Christian missions south of the Sahara as well as of African Religions.

Publications

Achievements