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While specialists in gender studies often refer to religion they seldom have recourse to carefully conceived definitions of it. The problem of definition is explored here in terms of its plurality of expressions and interpretation, internal tensions and change, and similarities and relations which cross traditions which are often perceived as being separate and distinct. Myth and ritual are taken to be of central importance, both being understood as gendered and bodily constituted. Theoretical inspiration is drawn from Wittgenstein's understanding of meaning as being constituted contextually and bodily and thus inseparable from social life. In this persepctive, religious language is a more or less precise act whose meaning will differ depending on the context, agents and agendas involved. Specific arguments relating to meaning and action are also drawn from the work of M. Douglas and L. Bäckman, both of whom have deconstructed and discussed (post-)colonial conceptualizations of culture. Their elaboration of potentiality and change has been of special interest. In sum, religion is regarded as (1)a dynamic and ambiguous field of meanings that is continuously created and constituted through human interaction (2) always gendered (3)bodily expressed and constituted (4) composed of myth, ritual and time concepts (5) a cource of continuity as well as of change in present social interaction (6) transmitted and renewed through mytho-poets, and (7)subject to analysis in terms of power, with reference to social interaction, socioeconomic conditions and the wider context.
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