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The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam
by Omid SafiThe eleventh and twelfth centuries comprised a period of great significance in Islamic history. The Great Saljuqs, a Turkish-speaking tribe hailing from central Asia, ruled the eastern half of the Islamic world for a great portion of that time. In a far-reaching analysis that combines social, cultural, and political history, Omid Safi demonstrates how the Saljuqs tried to create a lasting political presence by joining forces with scholars and saints, among them a number of well-known Sufi Muslims, who functioned under state patronage. In order to legitimize their political power, Saljuq rulers presented themselves as champions of what they alleged was an orthodox and normative view of Islam. Their notion of religious orthodoxy was constructed by administrators in state-sponsored arenas such as madrasas and khanaqahs. Thus orthodoxy was linked to political loyalty, and disloyalty to the state was articulated in terms of religious heresy. Drawing on a vast reservoir of primary sources and eschewing anachronistic terms of analysis such as nationalism, Safi revises conventional views both of the Saljuqs as benevolent Muslim rulers and of the Sufis as timeless, ethereal mystics. He makes a significant contribution to understanding premodern Islam as well as illuminating the complex relationship between power and religious knowledge.
The Politics of Loss and Trauma in Contemporary Israeli Cinema (Routledge Advances in Film Studies)
by Raz YosefThe last decade has marked the growing visibility and worldwide interest in Israeli cinema. Films such as Walk on Water, Or, My Treasure, Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir have been commercially and critically successful both in Europe and the United States and have won a number of prestigious international awards. This book examines for the first time the new ideological and aesthetic trends in contemporary Israeli cinema. More specifically, it critically explores the complex and crucial role of Israeli cinema in remembering and restaging traumas and losses that were denied entry into the shared national past. One of the most striking phenomena in contemporary Israeli cinema is the number and scope of films dealing with past traumatic events – events that were repressed or insufficiently mourned, such as the memory of the Holocaust, traumas from wars and terrorist attacks, and the losses entailed by the experience of immigration. Current Israeli cinema exposes and highlights a radical discontinuity between history and memory. Traumatic events from Israeli society’s past are represented as the private memory of distinct social groups – soldiers, immigrants, women, queers – and not as collective memory, as a lived and practiced tradition that conditions Israeli society. This detachment from national collective memory pulls the films into a world marked by a persistent blurring of the historical context and by private and subjective impressions – a timeless world of dreams, hallucinations and myths. These groups feel duty-bound to remember the past, recasting repressed memories through the cinema in order to return and to give meaning to their identity.
A Politics of Love: A Handbook for a New American Revolution
by Marianne WilliamsonIn this stirring call to arms, the activist, spiritual leader, and New York Times bestselling author of the classic Return to Love confronts the cancerous politics of fear and divisiveness threatening the United States today, urging all spiritually aware Americans to return to—and act out of—our deepest value: love.America’s story is one of great social achievement. From the Abolitionists who fought to outlaw slavery, to the Suffragettes who championed women’s right to vote, to the Civil Rights proponents who battled segregation and institutionalized white supremacy, to the proponents of the women’s movement and gay rights seeking equality for all, citizens for generations have risen up to fulfill the promise of our nation. Over the course of America’s history, these activists have both embodied and enacted the nation’s deepest values.Today, America once again is in turmoil. A spiritual cancer of fear threatens to undo the progress we have achieved. Discord and hatred are dissolving our communal bonds and undermining the spirit of social responsibility—the duty we feel toward one another. In this powerful spiritual manifesto, Marianne Williamson offers a tonic for this cultural malignancy. She urges us to imitate the heroes of our past and live out our deepest spiritual commitment: where some have sown hatred, let us now sow love.Williamson argues that we must do more than respond to external political issues. We must address the deeper, internal causes that have led to this current dysfunction. We need a new, whole-person politics of love that stems not just from the head but from the heart, not just from intellectual understanding but from a genuine affection for one another. By committing to love, we will make a meaningful contribution to the joyful, fierce and disruptive energies that are rising at this critical point in time. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, "we must think anew, and act anew . . . and then we shall save our country."
Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics: Cultural Sociology of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election (Cultural Sociology)
by Jeffrey C. Alexander Jason L. MastThe 2016 U.S. presidential election revealed a nation deeply divided and in flux. This volume provides urgently needed insights into American politics and culture during this period of uncertainty. The contributions answer the election’s key mysteries, such as how contemporary Christian evangelicals identified in the unrepentant candidate Trump a hero to their cause, and how working class and economically struggling Americans saw in the rich and ostentatious candidate a champion of their plight. The chapters explain how irrationality is creeping into political participation, and demonstrate how media developments enabled a phenomenon like “fake news” to influence the election. At this polarized and contentious moment, this volume satisfies the urgent need for works that carefully analyze the forces and tensions tearing at the American social fabric. Simultaneously intellectual and accessible, this volume is designed to illuminate the 2016 U.S. presidential election and its aftermath for academics and students of politics alike.
The Politics of Ministry: Navigating Power Dynamics and Negotiating Interests
by Steven Garber Bob Burns Tasha D. Chapman Donald C. GuthrieWe all need help navigating the politics of ministry. "Politics" is often considered a dirty word. It brings to mind lies and manipulation, accusations and scandals. But at its most basic level, politics is simply the everyday activity of getting things done with other people: understanding their interests, recognizing the power dynamics at play, and learning how to negotiate relationships and institutions to achieve a common goal. These realities are as true in ministry settings as anywhere else. In The Politics of Ministry, Bob Burns, Tasha Chapman, and Donald Guthrie combine their long ministry experience with sociological research on the topic. Filled with real-life stories taken from a variety of ministry settings, this book sets out wise principles and practices that help us see more clearly the political dynamics at play in our churches and parachurch ministries. All ministry is political. As servants of Christ's kingdom, we are called to navigate the politics of ministry with grace, wisdom, and charity. This book shows us how the gospel of Jesus changes the way we work with those around us toward our common goal.
The Politics of Monotheism (Elements in Religion and Monotheism)
by Ragnar M. BergemMonotheism, the belief in the One True God, seems to have an ambiguous role in political life: On the one hand, monotheism may foster the inclusion of everybody, regardless of identity or background. On the other, monotheistic religions demand submission to a singular revealed truth, distinguish between faithful and the heretics, and thus seemingly promote an antagonistic and tribalistic politics. What, then, are the political implications of the monotheistic belief in absolute truth? This Element traces the Enlightenment origins of our contemporary debates about monotheism and argues that these debates reflect a deeper Western ambivalence towards religion. It does so while discussing both secular and Christian critics of the politics of monotheism. The Element contends that there is no singular politics of monotheism, and that we can only approach monotheism's political significance if we take seriously the various ways in which truth is represented in political life in monotheistic traditions.
The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina
by Merike BlofieldThis book analyzes the problems that arise when women's rights conflict with the views of conservative organized religion. Specifically, it addresses the legalization - or lack thereof - of divorce and abortion in three recently democratized Catholic countries: Spain, Chile, and Argentina. Offering a vital and timely contribution to political debates on democratic consolidation, social policy, gender, politics and religion, it challenges many of the accepted assumptions and conclusions in these fields, arguing that to understand the political dynamics and policy trajectories on these issues we must first analyze the distribution of both economic and political power. Merike Blofield moves the debate away from a (unitary) focus on values and public opinion to an analysis of how economic, social and political structures give certain actors more power than others. The topics covered should appeal to a broad readership interested in the difficulties of democratic consolidation in Latin America, and the obstacles to social policy reform in a region with such high levels of inequality. The analysis presented in The Politics of Moral Sin also deepens our understanding of why and how European countries have been so successful in limiting the indulgence of organized religion and in promoting women's rights.
The Politics of Museums (New Directions in Cultural Policy Research)
by Clive GrayThis is the first book to examine how and why museums are political institutions. By concentrating on the ways in which power, ideology and legitimacy work at the international, national and local levels of the museum experience, Clive Gray provides an original analysis of who exercises power and how power is used in museums.
The Politics of Myth: A Study of C. G. Jung, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Campbell
by Robert EllwoodEllwood (Religion, U. of Southern California) delves into the political views implicit in the mythological theories of probably the three best-known popularizers of myth in the 20th century. He points that all three emerged from the anti-modern pessimism and romanticism that also generated European fascism, and have all been accused of holding fascists and anti-Semitic sentiments. He assesses those charges in light of their entire career and lifetime contribution.
The Politics of New Atheism (Routledge Studies in Religion and Politics)
by Stuart McAnulla Steven Kettell Marcus SchulzkeNew atheism is best known as a literary and media phenomenon which has resulted in the widespread discussion of the anti-religious arguments of authors such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, yet it also has strongly political dimensions. This book analyses the political aspects of new atheism and offers an analysis that is informed by insights from political science and political theory. The authors locate new atheism within a diverse history of politically-oriented atheisms. It is argued the new atheist movement itself contains a considerable variety of political viewpoints, despite coalescing around forms of secularist campaigning and identity politics. New atheist views on monotheism, public life, morality and religious violence are examined to highlight both limitations and strengths in such perspectives. Conservative, feminist and Marxist responses to new atheism are also evaluated within this critical analysis. The book rejects claims that new atheism is itself a form of fundamentalism and argues that the issues it grapples with often reflect wider dilemmas in liberal-left thought which have ongoing relevance in the era of Trump and Brexit. It will be of great interest to researchers and scholars in the fields of new atheism, political atheism, secularism, non-religion, and secular-religious tensions.
The Politics of Nonassimilation: The American Jewish Left in the Twentieth Century
by David VerbeetenOver the course of the twentieth century, Eastern European Jews in the United States developed a left-wing political tradition. Their political preferences went against a fairly broad correlation between upward mobility and increased conservatism or Republican partisanship. Many scholars have sought to explain this phenomenon by invoking antisemitism, an early working-class experience, or a desire to integrate into a universal social order. In this original study, David Verbeeten instead focuses on the ways in which left-wing ideologies and movements helped to mediate and preserve Jewish identity in the context of modern tendencies toward bourgeois assimilation and ethnic dissolution. Verbeeten pursues this line of inquiry through case studies that highlight the political activities and aspirations of three "generations" of American Jews. The life of Alexander Bittelman provides a lens to examine the first generation. Born in Ukraine in 1892, Bittelman moved to New York City in 1912 and went on to become a founder of the American Communist Party after World War I. Verbeeten explores the second generation by way of the American Jewish Congress, which came together in 1918 and launched significant campaigns against discrimination within civil society before, during, and especially after World War II. Finally, he considers the third generation in relation to the activist group New Jewish Agenda, which operated from 1980 to 1992 and was known for its advocacy of progressive causes and its criticism of particular Israeli governments and policies. By focusing on individuals and organizations that have not previously been subjects of extensive investigation, Verbeeten contributes original research to the fields of American, Jewish, intellectual, and radical history. His insightful study will appeal to specialists and general readers interested in those areas.
Politics of Oil and Nuclear Technology in Iran
by Akbar E. TorbatThis book focuses on oil politics and the development of nuclear technology in Iran, providing a broader historical context to understand Iran’s foreign relations and nuclear policy. The author assesses Iran's encounters with the West in light of major confrontations both in terms of open conflict as well as controversies surrounding treaties with foreign powers. In seeking to understand the geopolitics of oil in direct parallel to the geopolitics of nuclear technology, the book concentrates on Iran’s struggles to nationalize its oil, neo-colonialism, the formation of the oil consortium, and the more recent US backtracking on the nuclear deal with Iran.
Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject
by Saba MahmoodPolitics of Piety is a groundbreaking analysis of Islamist cultural politics through the ethnography of a thriving, grassroots women's piety movement in the mosques of Cairo, Egypt. Unlike those organized Islamist activities that seek to seize or transform the state, this is a moral reform movement whose orthodox practices are commonly viewed as inconsequential to Egypt's political landscape. Saba Mahmood's compelling exposition of these practices challenges this assumption by showing how the ethical and the political are indelibly linked within the context of such movements. Not only is this book a sensitive ethnography of a critical but largely ignored dimension of the Islamic revival, it is also an unflinching critique of the secular-liberal assumptions by which some people hold such movements to account. The book addresses three central questions: How do movements of moral reform help us rethink the normative liberal account of politics? How does the adherence of women to the patriarchal norms at the core of such movements parochialize key assumptions within feminist theory about freedom, agency, authority, and the human subject? How does a consideration of debates about embodied religious rituals among Islamists and their secular critics help us understand the conceptual relationship between bodily form and political imaginaries? Politics of Piety is essential reading for anyone interested in issues at the nexus of ethics and politics, embodiment and gender, and liberalism and postcolonialism. In a substantial new preface, Mahmood addresses the controversy sparked by the original publication of her book and the scholarly discussions that have ensued.
The Politics of Plainchant in fin-de-siècle France (Royal Musical Association Monographs)
by Katharine EllisThis book tells three inter-related stories that radically alter our perspective on plainchant reform at the turn of the twentieth century and highlight the value of liturgical music history to our understanding of French government anticlericalism. It offers at once a new history of the rise of the Benedictines of Solesmes to official dominance over Catholic editions of plainchant worldwide, a new optic on the French liturgical publishing industry during a period of international crisis for the publication of plainchant notation, and an exploration of how, both despite and because of official hostility, French Catholics could bend Republican anticlericalism at the highest level to their own ends. The narrative relates how Auguste Pécoul, a former French diplomat and Benedictine novice, masterminded an undercover campaign to aid the Gregorian agenda of the Solesmes monks via French government intervention at the Vatican. His vehicle: trades unionists from within the book industry, whom he mobilized into nationalist protest against Vatican attempts to enshrine a single, contested, and German, version of the musical text as canon law. Yet the political scheming necessitated by Pécoul’s double involvement with Solesmes and the print unions almost spun out of control as his Benedictine contacts struggled with internal division and anticlerical persecution. The results are as musicologically significant for the study of Solesmes as they are instructive for the study of Church-State relations.
The Politics of Postsecular Religion: Mourning Secular Futures (Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture)
by Ananda AbeysekaraAnanda Abeysekara contends that democracy, along with its cherished secular norms, is founded on the idea of a promise deferred to the future. Rooted in democracy's messianic promise is the belief that religious-political identity-such as Buddhist, Hindu, Sinhalese, Christian, Muslim, or Tamil-can be critiqued, neutralized, improved, and changed, even while remaining inseparable from the genocide of the past. This facile belief, he argues, is precisely what distracts us from challenging the violence inherent in postcolonial political sovereignty. At the same time, we cannot simply dismiss the democratic concept, since it permeates so deeply through our modernist, capitalist, and humanist selves. In The Politics of Postsecular Religion, Abeysekara invites us to reconsider our ethical-political legacies, to look at them not as problems, but as aporias, in the Derridean sense-that is, as contradictions or impasses incapable of resolution. Disciplinary theorizing in religion and politics, he argues, is unable to identify the aporias of our postcolonial modernity. The aporetic legacies, which are like specters that cannot be wished away, demand a new kind of thinking. It is this thinking that Abeysekara calls mourning and un-inheriting. Un-inheriting is a way of meditating on history that both avoids the simple binary of remembering and forgetting and provides an original perspective on heritage, memory, and time. Abeysekara situates aporias in the settings and cultures of the United States, France, England, Sri Lanka, India, and Tibet. In presenting concrete examples of religion in public life, he questions the task of refashioning the aporetic premises of liberalism and secularism. Through close readings of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Arendt, Derrida, Butler, and Agamben, as well as Foucault, Asad, Chakrabarty, Balibar, and Zizek, he offers readers a way to think about the futures of postsecular politics that is both dynamic and creative.
The Politics of Praise: Naming God and Friendship in Aquinas and Derrida (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies)
by William W. IiiWhile the revelation of God's name is a central theological topic, its ethical and political significance are often overlooked. In a world filled with violence committed 'in the name of God', how might invoking God's name enable peace, community, and hope? The Politics of Praise argues that the redemptive potential of naming God lies in how this event transforms friendship. It breaks new ground by tracing the connections between naming God and friendship in the work of Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Derrida. Advancing an innovative reading of Aquinas on the divine names, the book explores how Dionysius' mysticism shapes Aquinas' appropriation of Aristotle's ethics, then retraces how Derrida's reading of religion renders possible an alternative conception of friendship. These explorations lead to a surprising convergence between Aquinas and Derrida on the conditions of friendship.
The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-State in China: God Above Party? (Routledge Research on the Politics and Sociology of China)
by Carsten T. ValaAmong China’s restive religious and social groups, Protestants have arguably created the most sustained structural challenges to the Chinese Communist Party’s ordering of society. By drawing on grassroots fieldwork conducted across the country, this book therefore charts the ambition of the government to restrain Protestant population growth and direct it towards regime purposes. In particular, interviews with key church leaders who founded illegal Protestant congregations with hundreds of participants, reveal how officials and illegal congregational leaders have developed ties of trust and information that have permitted church growth, even as they preserve a public image of Party domination. Thus, by tracing the rise of large, illegal Protestant congregations apart from Party-state structures, this book highlights the importance of the public behaviour of religious actors and regime officials in understanding the dynamics of negotiation, domination, and resistance in 21st century China. Ultimately, The Politics of Protestant Churches and the Party-State in China paradoxically demonstrates that societal actors can alter the boundaries set by the Chinese Communist Party and the ways in which the Party is both more adaptive and resilient in its relations with society than first imagined. Offering the first book-length analysis of how ambitious Protestants have founded large, unregistered churches despite regime pressure, this book will be useful for students and scholars of Chinese Politics, Chinese Religion and Sociology.
The Politics of Race and Ethnicity in Matthew’s Passion Narrative
by Wongi ParkIn Matthew’s passion narrative, the ethnoracial identity of Jesus comes into sharp focus. The repetition of the title “King of the Judeans” (ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων) foregrounds the politics of race and ethnicity. Despite the explicit use of terminology, previous scholarship has understood the title curiously in non-ethnoracial ways. This book takes the peculiar omission in the history of interpretation as its point of departure. It provides an expanded ethnoracial reading of the text, and poses a fundamental ideological question that interrogates the pattern in the larger context of modern biblical scholarship. Wongi Park issues a critique of the dominant narrative and presents an alternative reading of Matthew’s passion narrative. He identifies a critical vocabulary and framework of analysis to decode the politics of race and ethnicity implicit in the history of interpretation. Ultimately, the book lends itself to a broader research agenda: the destabilization of the dominant narrative of early Christianity’s non-ethnoracial origins.
Politics of Religion: A Survey
This title explores some of the key issues which surround the politics of religion, an area which has historically been the cause of great controversy. Today religion is still the cause of a great deal of political debate, be it the teaching of the creationist theory in the United States or the relationship of church and state in Arabic countries. Four sections present a thorough overview of the politics of religion in historical perspective: Essay chapters written by a variety of academic and other experts on the major world religions and their relationship with politics, and on topics including religious fundamentalism, church and state and religious terrorism, providing background analysis of the links between religion and politics. A – Z glossary of religions, religious groups, ideas and issues, including entries on Agnosticism, Bradford Council of Mosques, Muslim Brotherhood, Nirvana, the World Council of Churches, etc. Entries are up-to-date and cross referenced for ease of use, and symbols at the end of each entry denote to which major religion(s) the entry refers. Maps for reference, showing adherents to major religions worldwide, adherents to religions in the Middle East, and adherents to the major sub-types of Christianity. This title offers up-to-date and unbiased information that will provide a wealth of information to students, academics, business people and general researchers.
The Politics of Religion in Early Modern France
by Joseph BerginRich in detail and broad in scope, this majestic book is the first to reveal the interaction of politics and religion in France during the crucial years of the long seventeenth century. Joseph Bergin begins with the Wars of Religion, which proved to be longer and more violent in France than elsewhere in Europe and left a legacy of unresolved tensions between church and state with serious repercussions for each. He then draws together a series of unresolved problems#151;both practical and ideological#151;that challenged French leaders thereafter, arriving at an original and comprehensive view of the close interrelations between the political and spiritual spheres of the time. The author considers the powerful religious dimension of French royal power even in the seventeenth century, the shift from reluctant toleration of a Protestant minority to increasing aversion, conflicts over the independence of the Catholic church and the power of the pope over secular rulers, and a wealth of other interconnected topics.
The Politics of Religion in Indonesia: Syncretism, Orthodoxy, and Religious Contention in Java and Bali (Routledge Contemporary Southeast Asia Series)
by Michel Picard Rémy MadinierIndonesia is a remarkable case study for religious politics. While not being a theocratic country, it is not secular either, with the Indonesian state officially defining what constitutes religion, and every citizen needing to be affiliated to one of them. This book focuses on Java and Bali, and the interesting comparison of two neighbouring societies shaped by two different religions - Islam and Hinduism. The book examines the appropriation by the peoples of Java and Bali of the idea of religion, through a dialogic process of indigenization of universalist religions and universalization of indigenous religions. It looks at the tension that exists between proponents of local world-views and indigenous belief systems, and those who deny those local traditions as qualifying as a religion. This tension plays a leading part in the construction of an Indonesian religious identity recognized by the state. The book is of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asia, religious studies and the anthropology and sociology of religion.
Politics of Religion/Religions of Politics
by Alistair WelchmanThe liberal enlightenment as well as the more radical left have both traditionally opposed religion as a reactionary force in politics, a view culminating in an identification of the politics of religion as fundamentalist theocracy. But recently a number of thinkers--Agamben, Badiou, Tabues and in particular Simon Critchley--have begun to explore a more productive engagement of the religious and the political in which religion features as a possible or even necessary form of human emancipation. The papers in this collection, deriving from a workshop held on and with Simon Critchley at the University of Texas at San Antonio in February 2010, take up the ways in which religion's encounter with politics transforms not only politics but also religion itself, molding it into various religions of politics, including not just heretical religious metaphysics, but also what Critchley describes as non-metaphysical religion, the faith of the faithless. Starting from Critchley's own genealogy of Pauline faith, the articles in this collection explore and defend some of the religions of politics and their implications. Costica Bradatan teases out the implications of Critchley's substitution of humor for tragedy as the vehicle for the minimal self-distancing required for any politics. Jill Stauffer compares Critchley's non-metaphysical religiosity with Charles Taylor's account of Christianity. Alistair Welchman unpacks the political theology of the border in terms of god's timeless act of creation. Anne O'Byrne explores the subtle dialectic between mores and morality in Rousseau's political ethics. Roland Champagne sees a kind non-metaphysical religion in Arendt's category of the political pariah. Davide Panagia presents Critchley's ethics of exposure as the basis for a non-metaphysical political bond. Philip Quadrio wonders about the political ramifications of Critchley's own 'mystical anarchism' and Tina Chanter re-reads the primal site in the Western tradition at which the political and the religious intersect, the Antigone story, side-stepping philosophical interpretations of the story (dominated by Hegel's reading) by means of a series of post-colonial re-imaginings of the play. The collection concludes with an interview with Simon Critchley taking up the themes of the workshop in the light of more recent political events: the Arab Spring and the rise and fall of the Occupy movement.
Politics of Religious Freedom
by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan Elizabeth Shakman Hurd Saba Mahmood Peter G. DanchinIn a remarkably short period of time, the realization of religious freedom has achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace. Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution, public and private actors around the world have responded with laws and policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and epistemological assumptions underlying this response, and what forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project, the contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption--ubiquitous in policy circles--that religious freedom is a singular achievement, an easily understood state of affairs, and that the problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global perspective, the more than two dozen contributors delineate the different conceptions of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as their histories and social and political contexts. Together, the contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more varied and complex than is widely acknowledged, and that the indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the communities cited as falling short.
Politics of Religious Freedom (South Atlantic Quarterly Ser. #Vol. 113)
by Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Saba Mahmood, and Peter G. Danchin Elizabeth Shakman Hurd Saba Mahmood Peter G. DanchinIn a remarkably short period of time, the realization of religious freedom has achieved broad consensus as an indispensable condition for peace. Faced with widespread reports of religious persecution, public and private actors around the world have responded with laws and policies designed to promote freedom of religion. But what precisely is being promoted? What are the cultural and epistemological assumptions underlying this response, and what forms of politics are enabled in the process? The fruits of the three-year Politics of Religious Freedom research project, the contributions to this volume unsettle the assumption—ubiquitous in policy circles—that religious freedom is a singular achievement, an easily understood state of affairs, and that the problem lies in its incomplete accomplishment. Taking a global perspective, the more than two dozen contributors delineate the different conceptions of religious freedom predominant in the world today, as well as their histories and social and political contexts. Together, the contributions make clear that the reasons for persecution are more varied and complex than is widely acknowledged, and that the indiscriminate promotion of a single legal and cultural tool meant to address conflict across a wide variety of cultures can have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problems that plague the communities cited as falling short.
The Politics of Religious Tourism (CABI Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage Series)
by Silvia Aulet Serrallonga Valentina Castronuovo Stefania Cerutti Charlotte Lee Panagiota Manoli Dane Munro Dimitrios Mylonopoulos Dr Daniel H Olsen Masahiro Omae Maria Angelica Orozco Jorge Olleros-Rodriguez Spyridon Parthenis Dr Elisa Piva Xosé M. Santos Francisco Singul Associate Professor Anna TronoAddressing a dearth of literature in this area, this book provides a comprehensive overview and framework of study of the politics of religious tourism. Existing work shows awareness that politics is present but the approach has been one of benign neglect, and/or a priori assumptions about the role of politics in the management of sacred sites. Previous literature is fragmented into various perspectives and approaches that best serve different disciplinary interests. By understanding the politics of religious tourism through the various perspectives and approaches from the discipline of political science, law, public policy, and other fields, this book: · Focuses on how power is exercised regarding religious tourism. · Looks at the governing institutions of religious tourism including the role of relevant governmental bodies such as ministries of tourism or national tourism boards, ministries of religion and/or culture. · Covers the role and influence of religious governing institutions, such as state-supported church/mosque officials, and universities. This book will be of great interest to researchers and students of religious tourism, pilgrimage, as well as related subjects such as political science, economics, sociology, tourism, law studies, and religious studies.