What role do artefacts and other material forms play in human activity? Based on a nuanced concept of social practices, as provided by Theodore Schatzki, Torsten Cress takes up this increasingly important question in social and cultural studies. For that he turns towards religion as an area often shaped by things such as pictures, figures, or prayer chains in fundamental ways. Via the ethnographic research of devoted Catholics, as can be found at important sites of pilgrimage, this work systematically examines the relationship between social practices and material entities.
