and Laurence Cox and Ugo Dessì. 2024. "Introductory Remarks." In Laurence Cox, Ugo Dessì, and Lukas K. Pokorny, eds. East Asian Religiosities in the European Union: Globalisation, Migration, and Hybridity. Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 1–9. (original) (raw)
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Introduction to "East Asian Religiosities in the EU"
East Asian Religiosities in the European Union, 2024
This volume aims to provide an overview of East Asian religiosities in the European Union, with the aim of shedding light on their increasingly significant presence, revolving around the informal or structured practices of several million Europeans and East Asians (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese people) living in Europe. In this introductory chapter we address some of the main scholarly issues concerning the study of these religiosities, paying attention to the reasons why this topic is relevant to Religious Studies and other related disciplines, to the methodological challenges inherent to this field, and to some conceptual questions emerging from the countryrelated and thematic chapters.
What Makes Asian Religious Migrants' Experience Asian?
Brown, Bernardo E. & Brenda S.A. Yeoh (eds), Asian Migrants and Religious Experience: From Missionary Journeys to Labor Mobility., 2018
Many of the most important studies on religion and migration published at the turn of the 21st century focused almost exclusively on European and American experiences – José Casanova’s Public Religions in the Modern World (1994), Thomas Tweed’s Crossing and Dwelling (2006), and Manuel Vasquez’s More Than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion (2011). Although some of these studies do include mention of Asian immigrants in Europe or the Americas, they do not look at the specific features of migration within Asia, from one Asian country to another, or the ways in which Asian notions of religion are different from those most widespread in Euro-America. This volume thus provides a series of case studies which focuses on these subjects, and also (as a whole) emphasizes the potential for creativity, agency, and reinvention on the past of migrants who are often seen primarily as victims – displaced, discouraged, and disabled once they are separated from their home terrain.
Challenges for the Sociology of Religion in Asia, by Graeme Lang (Social Compass, 2004)
Social compass, 2004
The sociology of religion is globalizing hesitantly, but still gives little attention to Asia. We need to extend our current debates and our best concepts to Asian societies. The many challenging phenomena include the resurgence of religions, debates and struggles over the political role of religion, the variety of religion± state interactions, and the impact of power on religions and theologies. For such questions, Asia is much more diverse than Europe and North America, and we should not shrink from trying to enhance our collective empirical and theoretical competence through study of Asian cases. We need to globalize more deliberately and here some possible suggestions are oered.
Introduction: Religion, Tradition and the Popular in Asia and Europe
transcript Verlag eBooks, 2014
Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de
This article explores the Scuola di Meditazione (School of Meditation) established in Sardinia in 1983, one of the earliest instances in Italy of the use of 'Eastern' techniques by Roman Catholic religious professionals to promote the practice of meditation for lay people. Against the backdrop of ongoing religious diversification in the Italian context, this case study provides an insight on religion under globalization as a complex and multilayered phenomenon. In particular, the formation and activities of the Scuola di Meditazione show to be ingrained in the working of the global cultural network, with both direct and indirect cultural imports from Asia through mediatization, missionization, and mobility; to build upon the broader global repositioning of the Roman Catholic Church towards Asian and other 'world' religions through the adoption of a soft inclusivist approach; and to provide a meaningful framework for glocal practices resulting in the globally-oriented reshaping of individual religious worlds.
The Decontextualization of Asian Religious Practices in the Context of Globalization
Journal of Religious and Cultural Theory, 2012
Global religious practices present a challenge and an opportunity to religious communities and practitioners. This term, global religious practices, I define as practices such as Buddhist meditation and Hindu yoga, that can be enacted and adapted in a variety of contexts and disembedded from their traditional religious discourses, settings, and communities. Paying attention to specific contexts in which religious practices are performed and the historical trajectories that created possibilities of global movement offers a nuanced understanding of how religious traditions connect, attach, and intersect with other modern religious and secular discourses. Global religious practices illustrate that religions do not travel as whole entities but partial elements that resonate with different cultures and are appropriated over time. In this article I focus specifically on Asian religions as these are especially disseminated in piecemeal, modernized versions that are often mistaken to be representative of the entire tradition. I discuss in particular three related areas yoga and meditation have entered, which have aided in the adaptation and globalization process: science, psychology, and health and well-being movements. I do not inquire into how ‘authentic’ or consistent these practices and innovations are but rather demonstrate the dynamic nature of religion within globalization, the limits and opportunities, and the complex and contingent features of this process. First I describe the contexts, which have led to the flourishing of Asian global religious practices including cultural flows, discourses of Orientalism, and the modern fascination with the self. In the second part of this paper I illustrate the processes and strategies through which Asian global religious practices are created and how these are recontextualized in new settings.