Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty

Stack, Trevor; Goldenberg, Naomi R.; Fitzgerald, Timothy

doi:10.1163/9789004290594

Cited by 22 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Defining practices as religious rather than secular quarantines them by removing them as potential sources of opposition to the dominant regime (see Chidester 1996Chidester , 2007Fitzgerald 2007aFitzgerald , 2007bStack et al 2015;Goldenberg 2012Goldenberg , 2015. The classification of some group, belief, or practice as a 'religion' or 'religious' is ultimately a contingent act of power.…”

Section: Definitional Problems With Religion and Related Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I and others have argued consistently that we should be studying the deployments of the category/term/word/idea itself, not only religion, but also others such as 'politics', 'society', 'nature', or 'science', and not the putative data to which it is supposed to correspond. (See also Harrison 2015;Cavanaugh 2009;Stack et al 2015;Horii 2016Horii , 2018Horii , 2021.…”

Section: Definitional Problems With Religion and Related Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…She contends that biblical depictions of God and His representatives are narratives about sovereignty, authoritative jurisdiction and communal allegiance. (Goldenberg 2018; see also Stack et al 2015) Let us remember that Buc began his essay by criticising the "shallow comparisons" that "enabled colonial history and constructed the Sociology of Modernity" (p. 262).…”

Section: History Of Japan and Japanese Religion: A Study Of Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Japan, Religion, History, Nation

Fitzgerald

2022

Religions

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I connect the invention of Japanese ‘religion’ since the Meiji era (1868–1912) with the invention of other modern imaginaries, particularly the Japanese Nation State and Japanese History. The invention of these powerful fictions in Japan was a specific, localised example of a global process. The real significance of this idea that religion has always existed in all times and places is that it normalises the idea of the non-religious secular as the arena of universal reason and progress. The invention of Japanese ‘religion’ had—and still has—a significant function in the wider, global context of colonial capital and the continual search for new ‘investment’ opportunities. Meiji Japan illustrates, in fascinating detail, a process of cognitive hegemony, and the way a globalising discourse on ‘progress’ transformed the plunder of colonial sites into a civilising mission. The idea that there is a universal type of practice, belief or institution called ‘religion’ as distinct from government, ‘politics’ or ‘science’ was not only new to Japan. It hardly existed in England or more widely in Protestant Europe and North America until the eighteenth or even 19th century. The idea of a secular constitutional nation state was only emergent in the late 18th century with the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Most of Europe—including the colonial powers England and France—were still Christian confessional church states through most of the 19th century. The franchise was granted only to Christian men of substantial property, and denied to women, servants, wage labour, colonised subjects, and slaves. This critical, deconstructive narrative helps us to see more clearly the ideological function of the generic category of religion in the wider configuration of modern secular categories such as constitutional nation state, political economy, nature, history, and science. I also discuss the relation between History as a secular academic science, and the invention of ‘the Past’ in universal Time. I argue here that the invention of the Past by professional Historians has a significant role in transforming modern inventions such as ‘religion’ and the secular categories into the inherent and universal order of things, as though they have always been everywhere. I reveal this on-going process of ideological reproduction by close readings of some recent ‘histories of Japan’ and the way they uncritically construct ‘the Past’ in the terms of contemporary configurations.

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Section: Definitional Problems With Religion and Related Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Definitional Problems With Religion and Related Categoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: History Of Japan and Japanese Religion: A Study Of Textsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Japan, Religion, History, Nation

Fitzgerald

2022

Religions

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“…As we extend this line of argument to the present day, a “critical religion” perspective asserts that the religious–secular distinction naturalizes the value orientations of modern capitalism and nation-states. Given this, “religion” and “secularity” are conceptualized as the categories of governance (Stack, Goldenberg, and Fitzgerald, 2015). Thus, a “critical religion” approach sheds the light on the historical fact that the academic discipline of sociology, ideologically founded upon social theory, emerged from modernist thought which separates the “religious” from the “secular.” Critical reflections on the categories of religion and secularity, which have been pushed forward by “critical religion,” therefore, urge sociologists to challenge their own imperial ideological heritage deeply embedded in their own scholarly epistemology.…”

Section: “Critical Religion” Empire and “Religion” In European Socimentioning

confidence: 99%

Historicizing the category of “religion” in sociological theories: Max Weber and Emile Durkheim

Horii¹

2018

Critical Research on Religion

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The generic notion of “religion” and its conceptual demarcation from “the secular” have been critically examined by a number of scholars from the “critical religion” perspective. The interrogation of the term “religion,” and other related terms, questions modern formations of knowledge and power in general. This paper constitutes part of the project which examines norms and imperatives which govern sociological discourse on religion. Max Weber and Emile Durkheim are particularly significant figures in sociology of religion. The aim of this paper is to historicize the category “religion” (and its opposition “the secular”) employed by Weber and Durkheim, in the specific social context of Germany and France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It hopes to contribute to a greater understanding of the ideological foundation of sociological theories of religion.

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“…As the literature on political performance and especially on processions suggests, the act of public presentation can be a powerful declaration of belonging (Holston and Appadurai 1996: 200;Rai and Reinelt 2015;Stack et al 2015). The dutiful perambulations of the peace activists do much more than merely thwart potential violence; they demonstrate the vitality of active, inter-communal civic life (Varshney 2002) and express the right of citizens to reimagine public space.…”

Section: Contestations Of Legitimacy: Citizenship Claims In the Old Citymentioning

confidence: 99%

The politics of inclusivity

McLaughlin¹

2017

Contributions to Indian Sociology

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This article examines popular perceptions of communalism and apparent lack of political engagement among Muslims in Hyderabad’s Old City. The Old City is a notoriously poor, Muslim-majority district with social problems exacerbated by poor infrastructure and political neglect. Through an examination of everyday political participation, which I term civic conduct, I argue that Hyderabadi Muslims enact notions of public interest and civic virtue. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted along networks of voluntary associations in the Old City, I argue that Hyderabadi Muslims contest the weight of historical exclusion and political negligence through expressions of civic engagement. Everyday accomplishments and aspirations perform a norm of civility in the Old City that constitutes a powerful claim to belonging. I suggest that civic conduct becomes both a means for accessing the rights of urban citizenship and a critique of exclusionary narratives.

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Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty

Cited by 22 publications

References 0 publications

Japan, Religion, History, Nation

Japan, Religion, History, Nation

Historicizing the category of “religion” in sociological theories: Max Weber and Emile Durkheim

The politics of inclusivity

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