Cultivating New Post-secular Political Space

Cultivating New Post-secular Political Space

Author: Roger Haydon Mitchell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-06-29

Total Pages: 187

ISBN-13: 1000011836

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This comprehensive volume provides crucial insights from contemporary academics and practitioners into how positive interventions might be made into post-secular political spaces that have emerged in the wake of the economic, political, and social upheavals of the 2008 global financial crisis. The failure of liberal democracy to deal effectively with such challenges has led to scapegoating of the poor, immigrants, and Muslims, and contributed to the populist electoral success of, among others, the Leave campaign during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, and Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign. These shocks have highlighted contemporary political spaces defined by what has been termed ‘all the posts’: postmodern, post-Christendom, post-liberal, post-political, and post-secular. This collection examines emerging attempts to understand and advance the cause of wellbeing within this context. The authors address a variety of key issues including: (re)configuring mythologies for the common good; deploying love and friendship politically; motivating new social movements; valuing the other; recovering displaced and devalued political narratives; finding alternatives to the previously dominant neo-liberalism; listening deeply for social transformation; and overcoming adversarial party politics. This book was originally published online as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse.


Book Synopsis Cultivating New Post-secular Political Space by : Roger Haydon Mitchell

Download or read book Cultivating New Post-secular Political Space written by Roger Haydon Mitchell and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-06-29 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive volume provides crucial insights from contemporary academics and practitioners into how positive interventions might be made into post-secular political spaces that have emerged in the wake of the economic, political, and social upheavals of the 2008 global financial crisis. The failure of liberal democracy to deal effectively with such challenges has led to scapegoating of the poor, immigrants, and Muslims, and contributed to the populist electoral success of, among others, the Leave campaign during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, and Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign. These shocks have highlighted contemporary political spaces defined by what has been termed ‘all the posts’: postmodern, post-Christendom, post-liberal, post-political, and post-secular. This collection examines emerging attempts to understand and advance the cause of wellbeing within this context. The authors address a variety of key issues including: (re)configuring mythologies for the common good; deploying love and friendship politically; motivating new social movements; valuing the other; recovering displaced and devalued political narratives; finding alternatives to the previously dominant neo-liberalism; listening deeply for social transformation; and overcoming adversarial party politics. This book was originally published online as a special issue of the journal Global Discourse.


Lifemaking

Lifemaking

Author: Nimi Wariboko

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2024-06-01

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 1438498233

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Lifemaking offers a fresh frame for analyzing contemporary African politics and imagining its future. Rooted in the indigenous political philosophy of lifemaking of the Kalabari-Ijo people of the Niger Delta, this work is a counterpoint to the necropolitics that dominates African political practice. For practitioners and analysts for whom Africans and their polities are caught in the TINA (There Is No Alternative) syndrome, this book offers inspiration for an alternative to the current necropolitics. Because the book's thesis is an unreserved celebration of lifemaking, it identifies collective human flourishing as essential to politics.


Book Synopsis Lifemaking by : Nimi Wariboko

Download or read book Lifemaking written by Nimi Wariboko and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2024-06-01 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lifemaking offers a fresh frame for analyzing contemporary African politics and imagining its future. Rooted in the indigenous political philosophy of lifemaking of the Kalabari-Ijo people of the Niger Delta, this work is a counterpoint to the necropolitics that dominates African political practice. For practitioners and analysts for whom Africans and their polities are caught in the TINA (There Is No Alternative) syndrome, this book offers inspiration for an alternative to the current necropolitics. Because the book's thesis is an unreserved celebration of lifemaking, it identifies collective human flourishing as essential to politics.


Secular Surge

Secular Surge

Author: David E. Campbell

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-12-03

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1108918344

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American society is rapidly secularizing–a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the Religious Right arose as a new political movement, today secularism is gaining traction as a distinct and politically energized identity. This book examines the political causes and political consequences of this secular surge, drawing on a wealth of original data. The authors show that secular identity is in part a reaction to the Religious Right. However, while the political impact of secularism is profound, there may not yet be a Secular Left to counterbalance the Religious Right. Secularism has introduced new tensions within the Democratic Party while adding oxygen to political polarization between Democrats and Republicans. Still there may be opportunities to reach common ground if politicians seek to forge coalitions that encompass both secular and religious Americans.


Book Synopsis Secular Surge by : David E. Campbell

Download or read book Secular Surge written by David E. Campbell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American society is rapidly secularizing–a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the Religious Right arose as a new political movement, today secularism is gaining traction as a distinct and politically energized identity. This book examines the political causes and political consequences of this secular surge, drawing on a wealth of original data. The authors show that secular identity is in part a reaction to the Religious Right. However, while the political impact of secularism is profound, there may not yet be a Secular Left to counterbalance the Religious Right. Secularism has introduced new tensions within the Democratic Party while adding oxygen to political polarization between Democrats and Republicans. Still there may be opportunities to reach common ground if politicians seek to forge coalitions that encompass both secular and religious Americans.


Post-Secular Society

Post-Secular Society

Author: Peter Nynäs

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1412846102

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Are we still secular? If not, what can one possibly mean by “post-secular”? The answers depend on what one considers secular as well as the people, societies, and institutions that one considers. Post-Secular Society argues for the experience of living in a secular world and a secular age and the experience of living without religion as a normal condition. Religion in the Western world is often described as being marked to some degree by both innovation and disarray. The past couple of decades have seen the emergence of reformulated versions of theories of secularization, variants of rational choice and supply-side models of religion, and new theoretical perspectives on de-secularization of religion. In spite of these different approaches and perspectives, a majority of scholars agree that the West is experiencing a general “resurgence” of religion and that the public visibility of religious actors and discourses is on the rise across most Western societies. Post-Secular Society discusses the changes in religion related to globalization, as well as New Age and other forms of popular religion. The contributors review religion that is rooted in the globalized political economy, and the relationship of post-secularism to popular and consumer culture. They also detail current innovative discourse as a religious belief system; discuss theories of the post-secular, religious, and spiritual well-being; and consider healing practices in Finland and environmentalism.


Book Synopsis Post-Secular Society by : Peter Nynäs

Download or read book Post-Secular Society written by Peter Nynäs and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2012 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are we still secular? If not, what can one possibly mean by “post-secular”? The answers depend on what one considers secular as well as the people, societies, and institutions that one considers. Post-Secular Society argues for the experience of living in a secular world and a secular age and the experience of living without religion as a normal condition. Religion in the Western world is often described as being marked to some degree by both innovation and disarray. The past couple of decades have seen the emergence of reformulated versions of theories of secularization, variants of rational choice and supply-side models of religion, and new theoretical perspectives on de-secularization of religion. In spite of these different approaches and perspectives, a majority of scholars agree that the West is experiencing a general “resurgence” of religion and that the public visibility of religious actors and discourses is on the rise across most Western societies. Post-Secular Society discusses the changes in religion related to globalization, as well as New Age and other forms of popular religion. The contributors review religion that is rooted in the globalized political economy, and the relationship of post-secularism to popular and consumer culture. They also detail current innovative discourse as a religious belief system; discuss theories of the post-secular, religious, and spiritual well-being; and consider healing practices in Finland and environmentalism.


The Politics of Postsecular Religion

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Author: Ananda Abeysekara

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2008-05-08

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0231512678

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Ananda 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.


Book Synopsis The Politics of Postsecular Religion by : Ananda Abeysekara

Download or read book The Politics of Postsecular Religion written by Ananda Abeysekara and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-08 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ananda 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 Cultivation of Conformity

The Cultivation of Conformity

Author: Pink Dandelion

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-04-08

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1351728873

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This book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of ‘internal secularisation’ within secular and secularist cultures. Received sociological wisdom suggests that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest unique or universal, rather than moderate, truth claims appear attractive to would-be recruits. At the same time, religious groups need to appear equivalent, in terms of harmlessness, to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious organisations face a perpetual conundrum. Using British Quakers as a case study as they moved from a counter-cultural group to an accepted and accepting part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal and ‘harmlessness’ in pursuit of rights is played out in a secular culture. A major contribution to the sociology of religion, The Cultivation of Conformity presents a new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of conformity, and a model of the way sects and society inter-relate.


Book Synopsis The Cultivation of Conformity by : Pink Dandelion

Download or read book The Cultivation of Conformity written by Pink Dandelion and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-08 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the inter-relationship between religious groups and wider society and examines the way religious groups change in relation to societal norms, potentially to the point of undergoing processes of ‘internal secularisation’ within secular and secularist cultures. Received sociological wisdom suggests that over time religious groups moderate their claims. This comes with the potential loss of new adherents, for theorists of secularisation suggest unique or universal, rather than moderate, truth claims appear attractive to would-be recruits. At the same time, religious groups need to appear equivalent, in terms of harmlessness, to state-sanctioned religious expression in order to secure rights. Thus, religious organisations face a perpetual conundrum. Using British Quakers as a case study as they moved from a counter-cultural group to an accepted and accepting part of twentieth- and twenty-first-century society, the author builds on models of religion and non-religion in terms of flows and explores the consequences of religious assimilation when the process of constructing both distinctive appeal and ‘harmlessness’ in pursuit of rights is played out in a secular culture. A major contribution to the sociology of religion, The Cultivation of Conformity presents a new theory of internal secularisation as the ultimate stage of the cultivation of conformity, and a model of the way sects and society inter-relate.


Exploring the Postsecular

Exploring the Postsecular

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-05-17

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 9004193715

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This book examines contemporary relations between religion, politics and urban societies from a theoretical perspective. Special attention is paid to those authors (e.g. Habermas, Taylor) who analyze new global constellations in terms of a shift from the secular to the postsecular.


Book Synopsis Exploring the Postsecular by :

Download or read book Exploring the Postsecular written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2010-05-17 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines contemporary relations between religion, politics and urban societies from a theoretical perspective. Special attention is paid to those authors (e.g. Habermas, Taylor) who analyze new global constellations in terms of a shift from the secular to the postsecular.


Towards a Postsecular International Politics

Towards a Postsecular International Politics

Author: L. Mavelli

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2014-08-20

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1137341785

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An investigation of the postsecular in International Relations and how an increasingly postsecular international politics is contributing to the emergence of new patterns of authority, legitimacy and power in the international system.


Book Synopsis Towards a Postsecular International Politics by : L. Mavelli

Download or read book Towards a Postsecular International Politics written by L. Mavelli and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-08-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An investigation of the postsecular in International Relations and how an increasingly postsecular international politics is contributing to the emergence of new patterns of authority, legitimacy and power in the international system.


The Politics of Postsecular Religion

The Politics of Postsecular Religion

Author: Ananda Abeysekara

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9789551772949

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Postsecular Religion by : Ananda Abeysekara

Download or read book The Politics of Postsecular Religion written by Ananda Abeysekara and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:


Religion and Sexualities

Religion and Sexualities

Author: Sarah-Jane Page

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 169

ISBN-13: 1351381199

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This book examines key themes and concepts pertaining to religious and sexual identities and expressions, mapping theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions. It explores the ways in which debates around sexuality and religion have been framed, and what research is still needed to expand the field as it develops. Through the deployment of contemporary research, including data from the authors’ own projects, Religion and Sexualities offers an encompassing account of the sociology of sexuality and religion, considering theoretical and methodological lenses, queer experiences, and how sexuality is gendered in religious contexts. This comprehensive text will act as an essential accompaniment to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities, whether they have a general interest in the field or are embarking on their own research in this area.


Book Synopsis Religion and Sexualities by : Sarah-Jane Page

Download or read book Religion and Sexualities written by Sarah-Jane Page and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines key themes and concepts pertaining to religious and sexual identities and expressions, mapping theoretical, methodological, and empirical dimensions. It explores the ways in which debates around sexuality and religion have been framed, and what research is still needed to expand the field as it develops. Through the deployment of contemporary research, including data from the authors’ own projects, Religion and Sexualities offers an encompassing account of the sociology of sexuality and religion, considering theoretical and methodological lenses, queer experiences, and how sexuality is gendered in religious contexts. This comprehensive text will act as an essential accompaniment to scholars and students across the social sciences and humanities, whether they have a general interest in the field or are embarking on their own research in this area.