The making of the moonies?

Can anyone just give me a brief description of the Moonie research please.

'Eileen Barker’s (1984) study of Revd Moon’s Unification Church adopted several research methods, including participant observation. Barker considered the argument that in researching religion more information would be gained if the researcher pretends to believe in the religion being studied – if observation is done covertly. This raised for her the ethical question as to whether it was morally permissible to get information through false pretences.

Although this sort of dilemma is not confined to the sociology of religion, it does arise particularly in the examination of secretive religious movements unwilling to be studied. Barker argues that it is possible to carry out overt research even into fairly closed groups such as the ‘Moonies’. Although suspicious of outsiders and of publicity, the Unification Church gave her access to a great deal of informationand supported her research. Their media image was so bad that the ‘Moonies’ could not believe that someone who really tried to understand them and listen tothem would come up with a worse account than that provided by the media.' - - - She was the 'professional stranger' and thus members felt able to talk to her.

Don't know if that's what you are looking for, I couldn't find my old notes from AS so searched and found this brief-ish (!) bit instead. :smile:

Reply 2

sahsum

This is also relevant to crime and deviance, because the Moonies were considered deviant. Their founder, (can't remember name) was banned from entering Britain.