Identity Turn: Managing Decolonialization and Identity Politics in the Study of Religion
The academic study of religion, with its concepts and theories that originate in a Western, Protestant context, has justly been criticized in postmodern and identity-focused discourses, in recent years under the umbrella of decolonization and social justice activism. It has been suggested that alleg...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Brill
2022
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| In: |
Method & theory in the study of religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 34, Issue: 1/2, Pages: 162-181 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Science of Religion
/ Identity politics
/ Methodology
/ Postcolonialism
/ Social justice
/ Science ethics
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| RelBib Classification: | AA Study of religion NCJ Ethics of science |
| Further subjects: | B
social activism
B Race B Identity Politics B Decolonization |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The academic study of religion, with its concepts and theories that originate in a Western, Protestant context, has justly been criticized in postmodern and identity-focused discourses, in recent years under the umbrella of decolonization and social justice activism. It has been suggested that allegedly universally-applicable theories and methodologies are relativized and revealed as particularized Eurocentrism in the hegemonic representations of “white” or “Western” power regimes. While acknowledging such reorientations in the philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history of religion, this article also critically investigates and discusses the “critical study of religion.” It is suggested that the revisionist deconstruction emphasized by contemporary identity perspectives, with their discourses of difference and re-essentialized understandings of religion and culture, are not only problematic as theoretical orientations. Radical identity politics also imply methodological constraints on the academic study of religion, where comparison, analytical categories, and reflexive emic–etic distinctions must remain key factors. |
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| ISSN: | 1570-0682 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Method & theory in the study of religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1163/15700682-bja10069 |