Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ROSA (Religion and Its Others in South Asia and the World: Communities, Debates, Freedoms)
Période du rapport: 2022-08-01 au 2024-01-31
Those who question or do not conform to dominant local religious tradition(s) and/or religion as such have, of course, faced serious problems and difficulties in a number of different historical periods and locations. This project examines the forms in which individuals and communities raise, in the open or in more hidden transcripts, questions over the dominant religious norms in South Asia. This project is also interested in how such people are being targeted as distinct minorities by various religious and political groups. However, the effects of these encounters extend beyond this region: a significant number of community members now seek asylum in European countries. In consequence, these countries are now debating whether, or to what extent, varieties of religious non-conformism can be legitimate reasons for granting asylum.
While much recent academic work has focused on religious revivalism and reformist movements, critical engagement and sceptical attitudes towards dominant religious norms in South Asia are so far under-researched. A key aim of this study is to correct this absence and thereby to transform our understanding of the kinds of positions, individuals and communities that flourish but also, and critically, face challenges and provoke social contentions in South Asia.
It will provide three national ‘deep contextualisations’ of debates and criticism faced by secularists and religious sceptics in South Asia, asking: What are the specific circumstances in which criticism targeting these communities and positions evolve? This study also investigates the assumptions that inform European countries’ responses to cases in which asylum is sought on the basis of claimants’ religious nonconformism, and also those informing advocacy work performed by global secular networks on their behalf. Thus, while this project is ethnographically grounded in South Asia, it also extends beyond this region to examine global implications of critical debates and actions that are taking place there.
While much recent academic work has focused on religious revivalism and reformist movements, critical engagement and sceptical attitudes towards dominant religious norms in South Asia are so far under-researched. A key aim of this study is to correct this absence and thereby to transform our understanding of the kinds of positions, individuals and communities that flourish but also, and critically, face challenges and provoke social contentions in South Asia.
It will provide three national ‘deep contextualisations’ of debates and criticism faced by secularists and religious sceptics in South Asia, asking: What are the specific circumstances in which criticism targeting these communities and positions evolve? This study also investigates the assumptions that inform European countries’ responses to cases in which asylum is sought on the basis of claimants’ religious nonconformism, and also those informing advocacy work performed by global secular networks on their behalf. Thus, while this project is ethnographically grounded in South Asia, it also extends beyond this region to examine global implications of critical debates and actions that are taking place there.
Though we are behind schedule due to COVID-19, the team has performed stretches of fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sweden. Further fieldwork is planned for later in 2022 and 2023. We employed a variety of innovative virtual methods in order to conduct fieldwork and gather relevant data during COVID lockdowns. Therefore we have a number of accomplishments and a rich body of publications in press and due for publication soon. The team has met regularly, both online and in-person (so far in Edinburgh, Halle and Zurich).
Several project members have engaged in organizing key dissemination activities (workshops on nonreligion) and publications. A particularly significant achievement has been turning the obstacles we faced due to COVID-19 into a new window for illuminating the concerns of this project. In 2021 we held an online international workshop on digital and media methods and contested interactions between nonreligious and religious communities in South Asia (and beyond) across time and space. The aim was to bring the thematic focus of the project into alignment with key methodological considerations (and limitations) connected with COVID-19. This has resulted in the first major project publication, an edited book titled Global Sceptical Publics: From Nonreligious Print Media to ‘Digital Atheism’ (November 2022). The book provides significant answers to the research question, ‘What kinds of [nonreligious] community are able to form when they are hidden from view, necessarily anonymous, or present only virtually in online forums?’ Team member Mascha Schulz organized a workshop jointly with Stefan Binder titled ‘Committed to Religion’s Other: The Anthropology of the Secular’ (University of Zurich, held online from 14-15 December 2020). The papers delivered there have now been accepted for publication as a special section of the journal Religion and Society (2023).
Strong interdisciplinary currents obtain in the two edited volumes we have now completed. In addition to anthropology, religious studies, theology, film and media studies, international studies, history, and Islamic studies are represented and in productive interdisciplinary conversation in the two edited collections.
Several project members have engaged in organizing key dissemination activities (workshops on nonreligion) and publications. A particularly significant achievement has been turning the obstacles we faced due to COVID-19 into a new window for illuminating the concerns of this project. In 2021 we held an online international workshop on digital and media methods and contested interactions between nonreligious and religious communities in South Asia (and beyond) across time and space. The aim was to bring the thematic focus of the project into alignment with key methodological considerations (and limitations) connected with COVID-19. This has resulted in the first major project publication, an edited book titled Global Sceptical Publics: From Nonreligious Print Media to ‘Digital Atheism’ (November 2022). The book provides significant answers to the research question, ‘What kinds of [nonreligious] community are able to form when they are hidden from view, necessarily anonymous, or present only virtually in online forums?’ Team member Mascha Schulz organized a workshop jointly with Stefan Binder titled ‘Committed to Religion’s Other: The Anthropology of the Secular’ (University of Zurich, held online from 14-15 December 2020). The papers delivered there have now been accepted for publication as a special section of the journal Religion and Society (2023).
Strong interdisciplinary currents obtain in the two edited volumes we have now completed. In addition to anthropology, religious studies, theology, film and media studies, international studies, history, and Islamic studies are represented and in productive interdisciplinary conversation in the two edited collections.
'Global sceptical publics' is the first ever substantial book-length consideration of non-religion and media; with the latter being a pivotally important space for the contestations that are the focus of this research project. The chapters of the book both sum up and advance the state of the art in the field of non-religion studies, and provide answers to one of the project’s central research questions, as specified above.
‘The Anthropology of Nonreligion: Committed to Religions’ Others?’ consolidates and extends the key research field of the anthropology of non-religion, presenting novel analytical concepts and ethnographic case studies for the cross-cultural illumination of non-religion. The volume suggests that ethnographic analyses of nonreligion as situated practices allow for new questions and perspectives that are significantly different from approaches oriented to comparative frameworks and methodological nationalism.
‘The Anthropology of Nonreligion: Committed to Religions’ Others?’ consolidates and extends the key research field of the anthropology of non-religion, presenting novel analytical concepts and ethnographic case studies for the cross-cultural illumination of non-religion. The volume suggests that ethnographic analyses of nonreligion as situated practices allow for new questions and perspectives that are significantly different from approaches oriented to comparative frameworks and methodological nationalism.