A Debate on the Public Role of Religion and its Social and Gender Implications (original) (raw)

Sociología histórica y secularización: actualidad y renovación del estudio del pasado para el análisis de las transformaciones sociorreligiosas contemporáneas

REIS. Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2023

A inicios del siglo xxi, se evidencia el retorno de una renovada sociología histórica en el debate sobre la secularización a través de aportaciones como las de Talal Asad, Charles Taylor, Jürgen Habermas, José Casanova o Hans Joas, entre otros autores. El objetivo del presente texto se centra en el análisis de la recuperación de la sociología histórica, tanto a través del potencial diálogo que plantea con los clásicos de la sociología de la religión, particularmente con Max Weber, como de sus aportaciones para la investigación sobre el proceso de secularización. Para ello, y tras presentar un estado de la cuestión sobre secularización y sociología histórica, abordaremos los precedentes de este retorno de la perspectiva sociohistórica y los desarrollos metodológicos y conceptuales que proporciona esta aproximación al debate sobre la secularización

Religion, Globalization and Modernity: From Macro-Processes to Micro-Dynamics. Estudos de Religião, 28.2, 31–58

Estudos de Religião

Three aspects of the globalization – religion relationship are explored by this article. These three aspects are: growing religious diversity (as a macro-structural phenomenon); increasing organizational differentiation (as a mid-range institutional dynamic); and enhanced subjectivized religiosity (as a micro-social process). Discussion of these aspects is theoretically informed by the concept of ‘globalizing modernity’ which regards the networks and flows of globalization as implicated in the worldwide diffusion of processes and dynamics which are typically ‘modern’ in their character and impact. In addition to other examples drawn from various parts of the world, this article engages the Santo Daime religion as a working case-study which both grounds and exemplifies the issues addressed.

The concepts of the presence of religion in the public sphere of post-secular society. Between José Casanova's sociology of religion and the social philosophy of Richard Rorty

Przegląd Religioznawczy – The Religious Studies Review, 2017

With the theory of secularisation crisis in the sociology of religion, the claim about the end of religion, or at least its radical privatization, is increasingly being denied. Therefore there is a need to work out a place for it in post-secular societies. The article presents and compares two radically different concepts of the religious activities in the public sphere. The first of these is the sociologist José Casanova's proposal of deprivatization of religion, perceiving the benefits of its activity in the public sphere of post-secular societies. The second concept, the Richard Rorty's privatizing of religion, sees in it primarily a threat to liberal freedoms. Therefore, the American philosopher proposes to remove religion from the public sphere and place it only in the private sphere of the individual. The text ends with the hypothesis explaining the huge contrast between the views of Casanova and Rorty, as to the presence of religion in the public sphere of post-secular societies.

Practices of Sacralization. A Theoretical Proposal for a Sociology of (Popular) Religion from Latin America

The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Latin America, 2021

is chapter proposes that a way out of the impasse created by the prevalent, con- stricting de nitions of popular religion is possible if we focus on the second term of the concept: that is, on the way religion is de ned. Following (Asad, 1993, p. 29), if religion is a product of a historical discursive process, we need to de-universalize and desubstan- tialize it by looking to those practices designated as “religious” within speci c empirical places. We cannot, then, merely accept the modern notion of religion as an autonomous dominion with speci c functions and rules that is, by de nition, opposed to the “secu- lar.” is chapter o ers a new perspective by which to analyze the sacred beyond how it is treated in the de nition of popular religion. Instead, o ered here is the concept of practices of sacralization: the many ways of con- structing the sacred, of inscribing people, places, and moments in a di erentiated texture of the inhabited world. By stating the need for a process-based approach, this perspective considers the sacred as a unique and consciously created texture of the inhabited world.

RES 51. Thinking about Religion, Law, and Politics in Latin America * Pensar la religión, el derecho y la política en América Latina

Charles Taylor’s A Secular Age is both important and insufficient to the study of religion, law, and politics in Latin America. While aspects of the North Atlantic experience of secularity have become globalized, shaping legal systems and other forms of collective governance around the world, local and regional histories and experiences often depart significantly from Taylor’s account of secularity and conception of religion. Scholars of religion and politics in the region need to consider those aspects of local and regional history, such as indigenous and Afro-descendent histories and experiences, that challenge or may be indifferent to globalized Euro-American experiences of secularity and religion. To do so requires grappling with the global effects of the history charted by Taylor while also moving beyond it to account for practices, histories, and ways of life that work outside or against “secularity 3” and the presumptions about religion that it presupposes and produces. La era secular de Charles Taylor es a un mismo tiempo importante e insuficiente para el estudio de la religión, el derecho y la política en América Latina. Si bien hay aspectos de la experiencia del Atlántico Norte que se han globalizado, dando forma a sistemas jurídicos y otras formas de gobernanza política alrededor del mundo, las historias y experiencias locales y regionales suelen distar significativamente de la explicación de la secularidad y la concepción de la religión de Taylor. Los estudios académicos sobre religión y la política en la región necesitan tomar en consideración aquellos aspectos de la historia local y regional, tales como las historias y experiencias indígenas y afro-descendientes, que desafían o pueden ser indiferentes para las experiencias de secularidad y religión euro-americanas y globalizadas. Hacer esto requiere forcejear con los efectos globales de la historia establecidos por Taylor y avanzar al mismo tiempo más allá de ellos para dar cuenta de las prácticas, historias, y formas de vida que operan por fuera o en contra de la “secularidad 3”, y las presunciones sobre la religión que aquella presupone y produce

‘Religion and the Theoretical Implications of “Globalizing Modernity”’. Civitas – Revista de Ciências Sociais, 2014, 14.3, 403–18.

This article engages the interface of religion and globalization through the concept of ‘globalizing modernity’. An introductory section offers an overview of recent treatments of religion and globalization and identifies a number of key themes prevalent in academic discussions. The introduction then gives way to a more detailed treatment of globalizing modernity as constituted by transnational networks and border-transcending flows. The next section treats religion and globalizing modernity by engaging a number of scholars who reject the relevance of purportedly exogenous theories of modernity for understanding the Latin American context. The same section then identifies a growing number of academics who argue that the transnational networks and border-transcending flows of the contemporary globalizing world both necessitate and make possible a kind of ‘world’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ social science that transcends the hermeneutical limitations of unqualified claims to regional particularism. The article then concludes by revisiting its key points and outlining their implications for contemporary understandings of religion and globalization.

Religiões e liberdade religiosa na prisão portuguesa: notas do trabalho de campo etnográfico

Etnográfica, 2023

Based on the ethnographic research in a Portuguese women's prison, this article offers a first insight into a subject scarcely discussed in Portuguese academia: the management of religion and religious freedom and diversity in prison. Through differing and intersecting views and with constant reference to the academic literature on religion in European prisons, the article highlights Catholics and Pentecostals positioning and how religion in prison designates a field in which power relations and processes of legitimation are constantly redefined and in competition. They generate dynamics of inclusion, exclusion and adaptation to the prison environment, and also innovative impulses produced by local-global fast-moving religious scenarios, settled in one of the most rigid and controversial institutions of the state.

Relig. Soc. vol.1 no.se Rio de Janeiro 2006 NEW PARADIGMS AND THE STUDY OF RELIGION: AN ANTI-ESSENTIALIST

2015

Over the last few years, there has been a heated debate among social scientists of religion whether we are going through a return of the sacred or an even deeper process of secularization. But this dilemma cannot be approached properly without a new gaze into religion, which may give more room to the internal logic of groups and to the disseminative character of religious-based imaginary and ethical elements across the social scenario. One must question integrationist and class-centred views, as well as their more encompassing paradigm- modernization and secularization theory. A new gaze that will not simply abandon or replace those theories, but will place itself at the margins, sometimes confronting, sometimes articulating modified versions of those more traditional views, so as to supplement them and not leave them untouched. It is a question of an inter- or perhaps post-disciplinary approach, which explores the frontiers of dominant narratives, thus defining new and old