page_title: A Community of Witches
section_title: Wicca as a religion of late modernity
hierarchical_section_title: A Community of Witches / Arguments / Wicca as a religion of late modernity
caption_attribution_description: English: Anthony Giddens at the Progressive Governance Converence, Budapest, Hungary, 13 October, 2004
context_page_description: A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States is a sociological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the Northeastern United States. It was written by American sociologist Helen A. Berger of the West Chester University of Pennsylvania and first published in 1999 by the University of South Carolina Press. It was released as a part of a series of academic books entitled Studies in Comparative Religion, edited by Frederick M. Denny, a religious studies scholar at the University of Chicago.
  Berger became interested in studying the Wiccan and Pagan movement in 1986, when she presented a lecture on the subject at the Boston Public Library. Subsequently becoming acquainted with members of the New England Pagan community, she undertook fieldwork in both a local Wiccan coven, the Circle of Light, and a wider Pagan organisation, the EarthSpirit Community. In total, Berger underwent 11 years of fieldwork among the Pagan community. Along with ESC founder Andras Corban Arthen, Berger also undertook a "Pagan Census" survey of the U.S. in the mid-1990s to obtain more data on the country's Pagan community.
context_section_description: Whereas the sociologist Loretta Orion had believed that contemporary Paganism was a postmodern movement, in A Community of Witches, Berger argued against this, instead considering Wicca to be a religion of late modernity. In supporting this position, Berger turned to the work of the British sociologist of religion, James A. Beckford, who in his book Religion and Advanced Industrial Society (1989) had argued that many new religious movements reflect the characteristics of late modernity by challenging traditional definitions of religion, sharing a holistic worldview and emphasizing the development and transformation of the self. Berger stated that while "Wicca is not specifically mentioned by Beckford, it does fit the model of New Age religions that he is analyzing." Whilst accepting that elements of postmodernism can be found within Wicca, Berger argued that the religion does not "signify an epistemological break with Enlightenment thought", and that as such it was intrinsically late modernist in structure; as she related, the "emphasis on globalism, the belief in personal and social transformation, and the use of noninstrumental rationality place Wicca firmly within the Enlightenment tradition."
  Berger's choice of "framework for understanding Wicca within the context of late modernity" was that of structuration, a theory put forward by the English sociologist and political theorist Anthony Giddens in his book The Constitution of Society (1984). Structuration theory maintains that both structure and agency influence human beings in their choices; the former refers to the recurrent patterned arrangements which influence or limit the choices and opportunities available for an individual, whilst the latter refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. Berger argued that whilst the beliefs and practices of Wiccans were "in part determined by social factors, such as class, race and gender", at the same time these Wiccans exerted a level of control and self-determination over their lives "both by the very act of becoming a Witch and through the self-conscious use of rituals to create a persona."
caption: The structuration theory of British sociologist Anthony Giddens played a significant influence on Berger's study.
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