Pilgrims until we die: Unending pilgrimage in Shikoku

Abstract

is the role of religion in these tumultuous historical contexts? The question becomes more palpable when we see, for instance, how Boer, in his chapter on Chinese peasant rebellions, insists that traditional concepts such as tianming (‘mandate of heaven’) and mingyun (‘destiny-and-fortune’) are essentially ‘secular’ in meaning (40–41). If this is true, what does it then mean to investigate the role of ‘religion’ in the context of Chinese peasant rebellions? Such awkward juxtapositions raise issues around terminology, and the transparency or lack thereof. For their part, the editors commit to an implicit understanding of religion, which, in contrast to other key concepts they elucidate in their introduction, remains undertheorized. The volume would thus have benefited, I believe, from paying greater attention to one of its central categories of analysis. Another point that should be raised is the occasional aversion towards causal models of explanation encountered throughout the chapters. Rahimi, in his otherwise insightful contribution on the significance of structured affects in the Iranian Revolution, denies causal explanatory approaches the ability to appreciate ‘contingencies’ and ‘spontaneity’ with respect to collective action (135–36), and places his trust in personal emotions and individual agency in their capacity to provide a more adequate account of the success of the Revolution. Prosic, though less vocal in this regard, similarly eschews the demonstration of a ‘“billiardball” causality’ (118) between Eastern Orthodoxy and the Russian revolution, and prefers the notion of ‘elective affinities’ for approximating her subject matter. It is not, however, obvious why causal explanations should on principle deny individual agency or intentionality, and one may suspect the production of a false dichotomy here. I would go further and argue that disavowing causal models of explanation as such does a disservice to generating meaningful insights, and is ultimately a self-defeating endeavour if one seeks to explain or understand a given socio-political phenomenon as opposed to merely describe it. In sum, Religion in Rebellions, Revolutions, and Social Movements presents fascinating historical material and demonstrates the importance of probing into the many uses of religion in transformational social contexts, as it has demonstrably played – and will likely continue to play – a significant role in socio-political developments and events of historical import. The volume is thus a welcome contribution to the study of the interactions between religion and politics, and is recommended to students and scholars of radical social change who harbor an interest in the role of ideology production for political mobilization, as well as in the affordances of religion as an organizational factor in sustaining political action.