From Islam to Confucianism to Voodoo, dress plays a pivotal role in religious expression. This book investigates how dress symbolically evidences both religious and social systems across a wide range of cultures - from Africa and South America to Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Caribbean. In some of these cultures, dress is part of a system of social control. Gender issues feature prominently since the control of female sexuality is often of great importance to the world's religions. Members of each ethno-religious group actively construct their own lives, and use dress symbolically. A central tenet for many of these groups is that the soul is visually manifested on the body through dress. Drawing on rich ethnographic case studies, this wide-ranging and interdisciplinary volume represents a major contribution to the study of both religion and dress.

从伊斯兰教到儒教再到伏都教，服饰在宗教表达中起着关键的作用。本书研究了服饰如何在广泛的文化中象征性地证明宗教和社会制度--从非洲和南美到亚洲、印度尼西亚、马来西亚和加勒比地区。在其中一些文化中，服饰是社会控制体系的一部分。由于对女性性行为的控制对世界上的宗教来说往往是非常重要的，因此性别问题就显得尤为突出。每个民族宗教团体的成员都积极构建自己的生活，并象征性地使用服饰。其中许多群体的核心信条是，灵魂通过服饰在身体上得到视觉上的体现。在丰富的人种学案例研究的基础上，这本内容广泛的跨学科书籍是对宗教和服饰研究的重大贡献。