The lived religion approach in the sociology of religion and its implications for secular feminist analyses of religion

Predelli, Line Nyhagen

doi:10.1177/0037768617727482

Cited by 29 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…This framework implies that a disaggregated, multidimensional conceptualization of religiosity is needed, instead of focusing on differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, as previous studies have done (e.g., Inglehart and Norris 2003 ; Lussier and Fish 2016 ; Norris 2009 ). This is because rigid patriarchal religious structures obstruct support for gender equality while other dimensions of religiosity stimulate emancipatory advancements (see Cornwall et al 1986 ; Hall 1997 ; Nyhagen 2017 ; Stark and Glock 1968 ). Indeed, our results consistently showed that while religious service attendance, textualism, and devotion decreased support for gender equality, the salience of religious beliefs in life choices had no singularly negative impact.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In line with classic and more contemporary distinctions, we firstly differentiate between (external) religious practices and (internal) religious beliefs (see Figure 1 ) ( Cornwall et al 1986 ; Hall 1997 ; Kellstedt et al 1996 ; Stark and Glock 1968 ). We further subdivide religious practices into two categories: private religious behaviors that are acted out without others, and communal practices, such as attending religious services, that imply exposure to the institutional patriarchal establishment’s home ( Aune 2015 ; Mir-Hosseini 2006 ; Nyhagen 2017 ). Concerning religious beliefs, a further distinction can be made as well.…”

Section: Religious Socialization Reconsideredmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

2018

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Much is said about Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) publics opposing gender equality, often referring to patriarchal Islam. However, nuanced large-scale studies addressing which specific aspects of religiosity affect support for gender equality across the MENA are conspicuously absent. This study develops and tests a gendered agentic socialization framework that proposes that MENA citizens are not only passively socialized by religion but also have agency (within their religiosity). This disaggregates the influence of religiosity, highlights its multifacetedness, and theorizes the moderating roles that gender and sociocognitive empowerment play via gendered processes of agentic dissociations. Using 15 World Values Surveys and multilevel models, our analyses show that most dimensions of religiosity fuel opposition to gender equality. However, the salience of religion in daily life is found to increase women’s support for gender equality and cushion the negative impact of religious service attendance. Also, gender and education moderate the impacts of several religiosity dimensions; for instance, women’s (initially greater) support for gender equality more sharply declines with increased service attendance than men’s. Altogether, this study finds that religious socialization is multifaceted and gendered, and that certain men and women are inclined and equipped to deviate from dominant patriarchal religious interpretations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Religious Socialization Reconsideredmentioning

confidence: 99%

Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

2018

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“…can be considered in dialogue with feminist theorisations of the secular. Similar to feminist scholars who pose questions about how to envision alternative and inclusive political-societal futures (Aune et al 2017;Nyhagen 2017;Reilly 2017), BOEH! does not provide an easy answer.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Secularity, gender, and emancipation: thinking through feminist activism and feminist approaches to the secular

Brandt

2019

Religion

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In this article, I engage with feminist discussions about secularity, gender, and emancipation. The feminist study of the secular was spurred by interventions of Saba Mahmood [2005. The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press], and can be seen as a critical engagement with at least one basic assumption that underlies much of progressive thinkingthat secularism is beneficial for women and LGBTQ subjects. I begin by exploring how the Belgian feminist activist platform Baas Over Eigen Hoofd! (Boss Over One's Own Head!) builds a locally suited theory and practice of emancipation. I analyse how BOEH! raises questions about gender and secularity. Second, I zoom-out by mapping feminist studies of the secular in Western European contexts, distinguishing various analytical approaches and visions on social-political secular emancipatory alternatives. To conclude, I relate local feminist activism to feminist academic discussions, and argue that there is a continued need for thinking about shared emancipatory futures.Emancipation is not an 'all or nothing' affair. (Nancy Fraser in: Fraser and Liakova 2008, 4) The story [of secularism] has had enormous staying power. Our view of history is shaped by that story. (Scott 2018, 14) Posing questions about emancipation often means criticising political, social, cultural, and religious structures of dominance and revealing the relationships between freedom and its restrictions. Critical theories, such as feminist, postcolonial, and queer theories, and social movements, such as women's, antiracist, and LGBTQ movements, analyse the restriction of freedom in various ways and as such propose differing ideas about progressive change. In Western contexts influenced by a European Enlightenment tradition, 'emancipation' is a layered and emphatic concept, referring to equality, self-determination, liberation, and individual responsibility (Birkle et al. 2012). Posing questions about emancipation within this political-cultural framework leads to asking about the obstacles to equality and self-determination: Liberation from what? Self-determination regarding what? What does it mean to be responsible for building one's 'own life'? (Bauhardt 2004).

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“…In recent years, religious studies have engaged with discussions on the existing gap between normative ideals and praxis, referred to as a "lived religion" approach (Nyhagen 2017). Instead of concentrating predominantly on the study of religious institutions and organizations, this approach considers the experience of religious persons in everyday life (Orsi 2003), assuming that people have an active and reflexive role in changing and negotiating their spiritual practices and beliefs, as well as engaging with institutional forms of religion.…”

Section: Women In Sikhism In Theory and In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Women and Sikhism in Theory and Practice: Normative Discourses, Seva Performances, and Agency in the Case Study of Some Young Sikh Women in Northern Italy

Bertolani

2020

Religions

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The paper reflects on the role of women in Sikhism in theory and social practice, starting from a case study in northern Italy. Although the normative discourse widely shared in mainstream Sikhism affirms the equality between man and woman and the same possibility to manifest devotion through every kind of seva (social service within gurdwaras), empirical observation in some Italian gurdwaras has shown a different picture, as there is a clear division of tasks that implicitly subtends a gender-based hierarchy. This relational structure is challenged by intergenerational tensions, especially by young women born or raised in Italy, who may want to develop a different Sikh identity, considered compatible also with the Italian social and cultural context. In this initial process of collective identity definition and of agency, the female participation in the religious seva within gurdwaras is identified as the tool for change of power relations that cross genders and generations.

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The lived religion approach in the sociology of religion and its implications for secular feminist analyses of religion

Abstract: approach.

Cited by 29 publications

References 41 publications

Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

Re-Understanding Religion and Support for Gender Equality in Arab Countries

Secularity, gender, and emancipation: thinking through feminist activism and feminist approaches to the secular

Women and Sikhism in Theory and Practice: Normative Discourses, Seva Performances, and Agency in the Case Study of Some Young Sikh Women in Northern Italy

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