Sacred Snaps: Photovoice for Interfaith Engagement
A new book for a new paradigm of interfaith engagement.
“This book will open your eyes—to the often-overlooked presence of sacred times and places in everyday life, to the possibilities opened up by that ever-present camera in our pockets, and most of all to the common ground that can be found when ordinary people of different faiths show each other what their life of faith looks like. It is a brilliant exploration that is as solidly theoretical as it is excitingly practical.”
Nancy T. Ammerman, Professor Emerita, Boston University, author of Studying Lived Religion: Contexts and Practices
About the Book
Sacred Snaps tells the story of a new approach to interfaith engagement. It is an invitation to see and engage religion, diversity, and inclusion through the lens of the mobile phone camera. These days, just about everyone owns a smartphone. What if we recruited these cameras for the common good? When religion shows up in everyday life—at work, school, the mall, or the beach—often it is not welcome. At a time when so much of the public discourse is around equity, diversity, and inclusion, religion seems peripheral to important conversations about belief and belonging.
Many embrace the wisdom that our workplaces, schools, and communities are enhanced when people can bring their whole selves into every aspect of their daily lives. But religion and spirituality are not gaining the same ground as other aspects of diversity such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and ability. To be more fully included in the cultural conversation about human flourishing, religion needs to be seen and heard in new ways. The old paradigm of interreligious dialogue is no longer adequate. A new paradigm focused on building relationships at the grass roots of daily life is emerging.
Speaking Engagements
This fall and winter, you can also bring the authors to your community for a participatory discussion around the book where audience members will be able to experience what photovoice is like as part of the book talk. Learn about the book presentations by contacting us through our website.
“This important new book provides interreligious practitioners with a user-friendly methodology for meaningful engagement across differences. The authors do so without losing sight of what is central to this work: people. Individual and communal relationships will always be at the heart of the interreligious movement. Roman, Cathy, and Bill help us think anew about how to cultivate, nourish, and sustain relationships in our interconnected and interdependent world.”
Or Rose, Founding Director of the Betty Ann Greenbaum Miller Center for Interreligious Learning and Leadership, Hebrew College
“In Sacred Snaps, Williams, Holtmann, and Sachs proffer an innovative study of grassroots interfaith engagement in pluralistic US and Canadian environs through the lens of photovoice. Exploring political polarization, race, socioeconomic inequality, gender and sexuality, and more, their work offers a compelling picture of myriad embodiments of religious and spiritual life.”
Celene Ibrahim, Faculty Member and Chaplain, Groton School, Author of Islam and Monotheism and Women and Gender in the Qur’an
Reviews
“In an increasingly polarised world, Sacred Snaps is an illuminating exploration of how photography can be leveraged to build connections through everyday interfaith engagement. Using an innovative application of photovoice, this book re-imagines the way we perceive and discuss religion and can use images to foster empathy and understanding. By inviting individuals to capture and share moments of spiritual significance in their daily lives, Sacred Snaps reveals how we can explore our differences and discover what links us all, regardless of faith. This original interfaith photovoice method roots religion in tangible, lived experiences. In doing so, it provides a much-needed roadmap for building bridges between faiths and promoting dialogue at a time of divisions. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in interfaith relations, visual methods and committed to building a more inclusive world in which our differences are viewed as a source of unity rather than division.”
Tiffany Fairey, Senior Research Fellow, Kings College London
“In a time when more Americans and Canadians than ever before have access to cameras on their smartphones, and when religion and politics can seem more polarized than ever, the authors of Sacred Snaps have introduced their innovative photovoice project. Based in three cities and drawing on Christian and Muslim participants’ photos, interviews, and Williams, Holtmann and Sachs’ observations and theories on ecumenism and lived religion, the project’s contents were clearly meaningful to its participants. Sacred Snaps masterfully weaves together participants’ stories and photographs with scholarly content. I would recommend it to folks working in/on ecumenism, scholars of lived religion in Canada and the US, and to all readers interested in evocative stories and images.”
Jennifer A. Selby, Professor, Memorial University
The Authors
Roman R. Williams, PhD, is the founder of Interfaith Photovoice. He is a visual sociologist and consultant who combines photography and sociology for intergroup and interfaith engagement.
Catherine Holtmann, PhD, is the academic chair of the Religion and Violence Research Team at the Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research, Professor, and Chair of Sociology at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada.
William Sachs, PhD, is an Episcopal priest with decades of parish service. His experience has included doctoral study at the University of Chicago in modern religious history, as well as occasional stints as a college and seminary teacher. He is also a prolific writer who has published eleven books and more than two-hundred articles, reviews, chapters, and essays.