In Re-enchanting Modernity Mayfair Yang examines the resurgence of religious and ritual life after decades of enforced secularization in the coastal area of Wenzhou, China. Drawing on twenty-five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Yang shows how the local practices of popular religion, Daoism, and Buddhism in Wenzhou are based in community-oriented grassroots organizations that create spaces for relative local autonomy and self-governance. Central to Wenzhou's religious civil society is what Yang calls a "ritual economy", in which an ethos of generosity is expressed through donations to temples, clerics, ritual events, and charities in exchange for spiritual gain. With these investments in transcendent realms, Yang adopts Georges Bataille's notion of "ritual expenditures" to challenge the idea that rural Wenzhou's economic development can be described in terms of Max Weber's notion of a "Protestant Ethic". Instead, Yang suggests that Wenzhou's "ritual economy" forges an alternate path to capitalist modernity.

本書從具像的觀點，結合物質文化與靈媒研究，從鄉村與都市情境中探討民間宗教的意涵。第一部分以台灣鄉村的田野調查為基礎，從神像與乩童分析漢人民間宗教中靈力的概念與展現的形式，並以此說明漢人靈力的文化概念。第二部分，作者隨著村民從鄉村移往都市，探討移民在面對都市生活種種困難時，如何透過改造原鄉宗教，發展出新的都市宗教形式以面對快速變遷的都市情境。提供我們一個理解台灣民間宗教從鄉村到都市的動態樣貌，呈現了台灣民間宗教發展更整體的圖像。
※本書英文版榮獲中央研究院人文及社會科學學術性專書獎※