State Recognition and Religious Minority Agency in a European Context (original) (raw)
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Governance of religious diversity in Western Europe
Governance of religious diversity in Western Europe, 2019
"Governance of religious diversity" appears to be the latest term to address the relationship between the state and (immigrant) religious groups in Western Europe. Conventional/established arrangements and frameworks of state-church relations (i.e. secularism) need to be revisited to include new religions and religious groups to the equation. It is suggested that contemporary multicultural societies require a broader perspective and a sophisticated framework than established under-standings of secularism, and receiving states' governmental policies. Today, the main concern of Western European states is not the relationship between the state and church, but how to deal with Islam and accommodate distinctive religious practices in public spaces. This review article examines the current debates on governance of religious diversity through elaborating on the six books reviewed.
Routledge Handbook on the Governance of Religious Diversity
Routledge, 2021
This book critically reviews state-religion models and the ways in which different countries manage religious diversity, illuminating different responses to the challenges encountered in accommodating both majorities and minorities. The country cases encompass eight world regions and 23 countries, offering a wealth of research material suitable to support comparative research. Each case is analysed in depth looking at historical trends, current practices, policies, legal norms and institutions. By looking into state-religion relations and governance of religious diversity in regions beyond Europe, we gain insights into predominantly Muslim countries (Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia), countries with pronounced historical religious diversity (India and Lebanon) and into a predominantly migrant pluralist nation (Australia). These insights can provide a basis for re-thinking European models and learning from experiences of governing religious diversity in other socio-economic and geopolitical contexts. Key analytical and comparative reflections inform the introduction and concluding chapters. This volume offers a research and study companion to better understand the connection between state-religion relations and the governance of religious diversity in order to inform both policy and research efforts in accommodating religious diversity. Given its accessible language and further readings provided in each chapter, the volume is ideally suited for undergraduate and graduate students. It will also be a valuable resource for researchers working in the wider field of ethnic, migration, religion and citizenship studies.
The objective of this study is to provide a cartography of the most relevant ways of managing cultural diversity and of the most widely extended discourses about religious, ethnic, and cultural otherness in Europe. It reviews notions such as diversity, national identities, multicultural demands, democratic systems, and European challenges and the strong colonial continuities in the construction of otherness, and in the management of present-day coexistence in Western Europe. Available at: mellenpress.com/book/The-Management-of-Religious-Ethnic-and-Cultural-Diversity-in-Europe-in-the-21st-Century-The-Variety-of-National-Approaches/9494/
From Exclusivism to Pluralism: A Reflection on European Religious Minorities
The Age of Human Rights Journal, 2018
This paper reviews the religious diversity theory in the writings of Hick, Legenhausen and Netland, among others. It distinguishes two main approaches to religious diversity, pluralism and exclusivism, and examines their negative and positive application in the current situation of new minorities’ management policies. Drawing on current praxis the negative consequences of religious minorities’ disintegration processes are identified. The paper argues for the need to develop further actions that could effectively accommodate minority´s religious identities, in order to build a common and shared framework, with a certain degree of flexibility to be able to adapt to future social and cultural changes.
Religious Minorities and Struggle for Recognition
Social Inclusion, 2020
Religious minorities are increasingly present in the public sphere. Often pointed out as a problem, we argue here that the establishment of these minorities in Western societies is happening through struggles for recognition. Communities or individuals belonging to different minorities are seeking recognition from the society in which they are living. In Section 1, we present, briefly, our perspective, which differs from the analyses generally presented in the sociology of religion in that it adopts a bottom-up perspective. In Section 2, we present and discuss articles dealing with case studies in the cities of Barcelona, Geneva, and Montreal. In Section 3, we discuss two articles that present a process of individualization of claims for recognition. Finally, we present an article that discusses the case of an unrecognized minority in the Turkish school system.
THEO2661: Religious Diversity in Europe: Identities and Practices
This module will address religious diversity in contemporary Europe by paying attention to recent events and ongoing debates surrounding this subject. For example, since the 1990s, the collapse of the Soviet Union has opened room for religious identities in post-socialist societies. Similarly, the increasing public presence of Islam by the hand of Muslim migrants and their children has challenged hegemonic ideas of secularism and citizenship. Meanwhile, the consolidation of supra-national institutions has produced a revival of ethno-religious identities that aim to recover sovereignty while targeting diverse forms of religious life. Ultimately, this module will discuss these issues by way of recent works by political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists.
C. Durham Jr., J. Martínez-Torrón, D.D. Thayer (eds.), Law, Religion, and Freedom: Conceptualizing a Common Right. Routledge, 2021
Legal implications of religious affiliation and change of religion Montserrat Gas-Aixendri * This article is part of the activity of the Interuniversity Research Group Cultural Rights and Diversity (Drets Culturals i Diversitat), a Consolidated Research Group recognized by the Catalan Government. The funding for the research came from the Project Gestión de la Diversidad Religiosa y Oorganización Territorial (Management of Religious Diversity and Territorial Organization). Ministerio de Economía y competitividad: DER2012-31062. 1 'The autonomous existence of religious communities is indispensable for pluralism in a democratic society and is thus an issue at the very heart of the protection which article 9 affords.'
Freedom of Religion and the Accommodation of Religious Diversity: Multiculturalising Secularism
Religions, 2021
The classical liberal concern for freedom of religion today intersects with concerns of equality and respect for minorities, of what might be loosely termed ‘multiculturalism’. When these minorities were primarily understood in terms of ethno-racial identities, multiculturalism and freedom of religion were seen at that time as quite separate policy and legal fields. As ethno-religious identities have become central to multiculturalism (and to rejections of multiculturalism), specifically in Western Europe in relation to its growing Muslim settlements, not only have the two fields intersected, new approaches to religion and equality have emerged. We consider the relationship between freedom of religion and ethno-religious equality, or alternatively, religion as faith or conscience and religion as group identity. We argue that the normative challenges raised by multicultural equality and integration cannot be met by individualist understandings of religion and freedom, by the idea of state neutrality, nor by laicist understandings of citizenship and equality. Hence, a re-thinking of the place of religion in public life and of religion as a public good and a re-configuring of political secularism in the context of religious diversity is necessary. We explore a number of pro-diversity approaches that suggest what a respectful and inclusive egalitarian governance of religious diversity might look like, and consider what might be usefully learnt from other countries, as Europe struggles with a deeper diversity than it has known for a long time. The moderate secularism that has historically evolved in Western Europe is potentially accommodative of religious diversity, just as it came to be of Christian churches, but it has to be ‘multiculturalised’.
Governance of Religious Diversity. Research Problems and policy problems
Immigration represents a significant challenge to the governance of religious diversity. With immigrants often come "strange" religious beliefs and practices that may force "us" to reconceptualize religion, to find more adequate policies of accommodation, and to change established institutional arrangements of state/politics and (organized) religions. Newcomers also pose challenges for the social sciences and political theory. It therefore does not come as a surprise that in the last decades we have found a veritable explosion of social scientific studies of religion and migration (see Bader 2007b; Maussen 2007a).