RELIGION AND GLOBALIZATION

What is Religion?
Religion is a fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a
group of people. These set of beliefs concern the cause, nature and purpose of the universe,
involve devotional and spiritual disturbances.
I. CROSS DISCIPLINARY CONSIDERATIONS
The study of religion is an inter- or cross- disciplinary area of inquiry (Crawford
2007). As such it has not always been successfully incorporated into social scientific disciplines.
 Major Scholarly Associations
American Academy of Religion (AAR)
Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) – 1948
Association for Sociology of Religion (ASR) – 1938
American Sociological Association’s (ASA) Sociology of Religion Section –
1994
 Secularization
It is understood as a shift in the overall frameworks of human condition; it makes it
possible for people to have a choice between belief and non – belief in a manner hitherto
unknown.
 Debate over Secularization
Social Scientists have heatedly debated the scope, nature, extent and parameters
of secularization in an effort to unveil the overall patterns and/or trajectories of the
modern world.
Grace Davies notion of “Viscarious Religion”
Rodney Starks’ National Choice Perspective
TWO BROAD STREAMS OF IDEAS CONCERNING SECULARIZATION
1. There is the notion of post – secular society, originally put forward by Jurgen Habermas
> POST SECULARITY – a contemporary phase in modern societies, whereby religion makes a
return to the public sphere from where it was cast out during the era of modernity.
>RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM – Grace Davies coined the phrase “Believing without
belonging” to account for the simultaneous public “flagging” of religious belief that is not
matched by religious practice.
2. Secularism is seen as an active project that is articulated alongside, the Western Modernity of
the post – 1500 world.
>SECULARISM – is a multi – faceted movement that has caused the onset of secularization in
Western Societies, secularization no longer occurs inexorably as a result of broader cultural,
economic and political changes but rather is the outcome of social action.
>Casanova (2006):

-Suggests refining secularization and addressing Eurocentric biases in the framing of that
debate.
-Future revisions of the secularization paradigm have to take into account the construction of
both sides of the secular – religious dichotomy.

 The secularization paradigm has been constructed on the basis of the historical
trajectories of a selective group of Western Nations, while ignoring non – Western
religion.
 There is a strong scholarly presence in the study of religion and the majority of the social
scientists working in the field are pre – occupied with the study of Europe and North
America.
 Riesebrodt and Konieczny (2010) argue that the sociology of religion “must overcome its
rampant parochialism.”
 Western Social Theory – based on the themes of modernity and secularity and has
ignored even non – Western branches of Christianity.

II. GLOBALIZATION: PERSPECTIVE FROM THE FIELD Globalization in Sociology of

Religion
The very notion of various locales coalescing into the global promotes the construction of
multiple narratives that reflect the manner in which group each group, religious tradition or
region contributed to the construction of “Global”.
 Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture by Roland Robertson
 Parsons’ (1977) Evolutionary Theory – inevitable universalization of certain institution
in the long duree’ of human history
 Robertson’s (1992): Globalization is defined as “the compression of the world”
 DE – PRIVATIZATION OF RELIGION
- There is a general tendency for religion to return to the public sphere or domain

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT DIMENSION

 GLOBALIZATION TEMPORALITY
>Albrow (1997) – “Global Age” that supersedes the “modern age”
>Giddens (1990) – “Consequences of modernity”
>Beck (1992 – “Second Modernity”
  SPATIAL DIMENSION OF GLOBAL
Robertson (1992) & Waters (1995) : Entails a geographical component
VARIOUS FACETS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GLOBALIZATION AND
RELIGION
-The rise of religious nationalism (Juergensmeyer, 1994)
-The return of religion into public life (Casanova, 1994)
-The proliferation of International Terrorism (Juergensmeyer, 2001)
-The increasingly personalized bricolage of individual religiosity (Beyer, 1994)
TWO DIFFERENT LINES OF INTERPRETATIONS
I. Globalization of religion
>Spread of religious and specific gears or forms or blueprints of religious expression
across the globe.
RELIGION: product of a long – term process of Inter – civilized or cross cultural
interactions
2. Globalization and religion
>Concerns the relations and impart of globalization upon religion
>RESACRALIZATION

III. TRANSNATIONAL RELIGION AND MULTIPLE GLOCALIZATIONS

A. Emergent Interdisciplinary field of transnational studies
>International migration has provided the means to theories the relationship between
people and religion in a trans – national context.
>“God needs no passport” by Peggy Levits (2007)
>“Migration of faith”
“DETERRITORIALIZATION” of Religion – the efflorescence of religious traditions in
places where these previously had been largely unknown or were ate least in a minority position.
TWO DISTINCT BLENDS OF RELIGIOUS UNIVERSALISM AND LOCAL
PARTICULARISM
1. It is possible for religious universalism to “gain” the upper hand, whereby religion becomes
the central reference for immigrant communities.
>RELIGIOUS TRANSNATIONALISM - religion “going global”
2. It is possible for local ethnic or national particularism to gain or maintain the most important
place for local immigrant communities.
>Transnational national communities are constructed and religious hierarchies perform
dual religious and secular functions that ensures the groups’ survival
INSTITUTIONAL TRANSNATIONALISM – Communities living outside the national
territory of particular states maintain religious attachments to their home churches or institutions.
B. The interface between religion and culture
 “Easternization of the West” – imports from the East, it offers a fresh perspective on
the interplay between religion and culture
 “GLOBAL – LOCAL/ GLOCAL RELIGION – Represents a “genre of expression,
communication and legitimation” of collective and individual identities.
FOUR FORMS OF GLOCALIZATION:
1. VERNACULARIZATION – Rise of vernacular language endowed with the symbols ability
of offering privileged access to the sacred
2.INDIGENIZATION – connected specific faiths with ethnic groups, whereby religion and
culture were often fused into single unit.
3.NATIONALIZATION – connected the consolidation of specific nations with particular
confessions and has been a popular strategy both in Western and Eastern Europe.
4.TRANS - NATIONALIZATION – complemented religious nationalism by forcing groups to
identify with specific religious traditions of real or imagined national homelands or to adapt a
more universalist version of religion.