Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2261551
Brent F. Nelsen, James L. Guth
ABSTRACTReligion has long played an important role in the European integration process. Here we review competing confessional visions of ‘Europe’ and summarise empirical findings on their influence on public support for the European Union (EU). In the EU’s early years Catholics – especially if observant – consistently favoured integration more than Protestants, a deep-seated difference that survived statistical controls for other factors. In recent years, however, religion’s impact has changed: (1) religiosity has replaced confessional identity as the most influential religious factor, as the devout in all traditions favour the EU; (2) religious traditionalism, previously tied to religiosity, now plays an independent role, with those defending the authority of the Bible and other traditional forms of religious guidance more sceptical of the EU; and (3) continuing secularisation has eroded support for the EU, both by reducing the ranks of the religious and by ‘decoupling’ religious influences from integration attitudes, especially among the young. We examine these changes in an analysis of the 2019 European Election Study.KEYWORDS: Confessional culturesEuropean Unionintegrationreligiosityreligious traditionalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Both data sets used in this analysis are publicly available and unrestricted.2. As we anticipated above, the correlation is higher among those respondents actually asked the traditionalism question (r = .44).3. We have not used interactive terms for Other Religions or Muslims, given their small numbers.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBrent F. NelsenBrent F. Nelsen is Jane Fishburne Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. He received his BA from Wheaton College (IL) and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching and scholarship focus on Europe and the European Union with an emphasis on religion and politics. His most recent book, co-authored with James L. Guth, is Religion and the Struggle for European Union: Confessional Culture and the Limits of Integration (Georgetown University Press). Recently he was appointed Interim Director of the Tocqueville Center for the Study of Democracy and Society.James L. GuthJames L. Guth (B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ph. D. Harvard University) is William R. Kenan Professor of Politics and International Affairs and Distinguished Scholar in the Tocqueville Center at Furman University. He is the author or co-author of several books and dozens of scholarly articles on the role of religion in American and European politics. His current research focuses on religious influences on populist politics, public environmental attitudes, and foreign policy issues. In September 2023 he received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion and Politics Division of the American Political Science Association.
摘要宗教在欧洲一体化进程中一直扮演着重要的角色。在这里，我们回顾了“欧洲”的竞争性忏悔愿景，并总结了它们对公众支持欧盟(EU)的影响的实证研究结果。在欧盟成立之初，天主教徒——尤其是虔诚的天主教徒——一直比新教徒更倾向于一体化，这种根深蒂固的差异在统计控制了其他因素后依然存在。然而，近年来，宗教的影响发生了变化:(1)宗教信仰取代了信仰认同，成为最具影响力的宗教因素，因为所有传统的虔诚者都支持欧盟;(2)以前与宗教虔诚相关的宗教传统主义，现在扮演了一个独立的角色，那些捍卫圣经权威和其他传统宗教指导形式的人对欧盟更加怀疑;(3)持续的世俗化削弱了对欧盟的支持，一方面是宗教阶层的减少，另一方面是宗教影响与一体化态度的“脱钩”，尤其是在年轻人中。我们在对2019年欧洲选举研究的分析中研究了这些变化。关键词:忏悔文化、欧盟一体化、宗教敏感性、宗教传统主义披露声明作者未报告潜在的利益冲突。本分析中使用的两个数据集都是公开的，不受限制的。正如我们在上面所预期的那样，在那些实际询问传统主义问题的受访者中，相关性更高(r = .44)。鉴于其他宗教或穆斯林人数较少，我们没有使用互动术语。本文作者布伦特·f·尼尔森是弗曼大学政治与国际事务的简·菲什伯恩·希普教授。他在惠顿学院(IL)获得学士学位，在威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校获得硕士和博士学位。他的教学和学术研究主要集中在欧洲和欧盟，重点是宗教和政治。他最近的一本书是与詹姆斯·l·古斯合著的《宗教与欧盟的斗争:忏悔文化与一体化的极限》(乔治城大学出版社)。最近，他被任命为托克维尔民主与社会研究中心的临时主任。James L. Guth(威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校理学士;威廉·r·凯南政治与国际事务教授，弗曼大学托克维尔中心杰出学者。他是关于宗教在美国和欧洲政治中的作用的几本书和几十篇学术文章的作者或合著者。他目前的研究重点是宗教对民粹主义政治、公众环境态度和外交政策问题的影响。2023年9月，他获得了美国政治科学协会宗教与政治部颁发的首届终身成就奖。
{"title":"Confessional culture, religiosity, and traditionalism: tracing the influence of religion on public attitudes towards European integration","authors":"Brent F. Nelsen, James L. Guth","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2261551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2261551","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTReligion has long played an important role in the European integration process. Here we review competing confessional visions of ‘Europe’ and summarise empirical findings on their influence on public support for the European Union (EU). In the EU’s early years Catholics – especially if observant – consistently favoured integration more than Protestants, a deep-seated difference that survived statistical controls for other factors. In recent years, however, religion’s impact has changed: (1) religiosity has replaced confessional identity as the most influential religious factor, as the devout in all traditions favour the EU; (2) religious traditionalism, previously tied to religiosity, now plays an independent role, with those defending the authority of the Bible and other traditional forms of religious guidance more sceptical of the EU; and (3) continuing secularisation has eroded support for the EU, both by reducing the ranks of the religious and by ‘decoupling’ religious influences from integration attitudes, especially among the young. We examine these changes in an analysis of the 2019 European Election Study.KEYWORDS: Confessional culturesEuropean Unionintegrationreligiosityreligious traditionalism Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. Both data sets used in this analysis are publicly available and unrestricted.2. As we anticipated above, the correlation is higher among those respondents actually asked the traditionalism question (r = .44).3. We have not used interactive terms for Other Religions or Muslims, given their small numbers.Additional informationNotes on contributorsBrent F. NelsenBrent F. Nelsen is Jane Fishburne Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. He received his BA from Wheaton College (IL) and his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His teaching and scholarship focus on Europe and the European Union with an emphasis on religion and politics. His most recent book, co-authored with James L. Guth, is Religion and the Struggle for European Union: Confessional Culture and the Limits of Integration (Georgetown University Press). Recently he was appointed Interim Director of the Tocqueville Center for the Study of Democracy and Society.James L. GuthJames L. Guth (B.S. University of Wisconsin-Madison; Ph. D. Harvard University) is William R. Kenan Professor of Politics and International Affairs and Distinguished Scholar in the Tocqueville Center at Furman University. He is the author or co-author of several books and dozens of scholarly articles on the role of religion in American and European politics. His current research focuses on religious influences on populist politics, public environmental attitudes, and foreign policy issues. In September 2023 he received the inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award from the Religion and Politics Division of the American Political Science Association.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135813572","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2212579
E. Baffelli
ABSTRACT This contribution uses examples from ‘new religions’ (shinshūkyō) to discuss how minority religions have been constructed in Japan, highlighting in particular the centrality of fear in the creation and perpetuation of minority status. Groups labelled as new religions have, since the late nineteenth century, provided the blueprint for defining what is considered ‘mainstream’ or ‘proper’ religion, often associated with supposedly ‘traditional’ religions seen as part of Japan’s culture and heritage, and ‘marginal’ or ‘outsider’ religions or religious practices that do not fit the definition of tradition in a given time and are viewed with suspicion, and, at times, controlled or suppressed. This contribution discusses how such marginalisation intersects with empowerment dynamics in the creation and perception of minority status among religious groups in Japan. Fear, I argue, is not only central to how minoritised religious groups are perceived by the external world but has also worked on interactions and relations between religious organisations and society in the other direction, from group members towards the external world. Paying attention to how groups navigate and respond to marginalisation, whether by hiding or eschewing their marginal status or by embracing it as a means of empowerment, is therefore crucial to understanding the dynamics of minoritisation.
{"title":"Fear and the construction of minority religions in Japan","authors":"E. Baffelli","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2212579","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2212579","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This contribution uses examples from ‘new religions’ (shinshūkyō) to discuss how minority religions have been constructed in Japan, highlighting in particular the centrality of fear in the creation and perpetuation of minority status. Groups labelled as new religions have, since the late nineteenth century, provided the blueprint for defining what is considered ‘mainstream’ or ‘proper’ religion, often associated with supposedly ‘traditional’ religions seen as part of Japan’s culture and heritage, and ‘marginal’ or ‘outsider’ religions or religious practices that do not fit the definition of tradition in a given time and are viewed with suspicion, and, at times, controlled or suppressed. This contribution discusses how such marginalisation intersects with empowerment dynamics in the creation and perception of minority status among religious groups in Japan. Fear, I argue, is not only central to how minoritised religious groups are perceived by the external world but has also worked on interactions and relations between religious organisations and society in the other direction, from group members towards the external world. Paying attention to how groups navigate and respond to marginalisation, whether by hiding or eschewing their marginal status or by embracing it as a means of empowerment, is therefore crucial to understanding the dynamics of minoritisation.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87742937","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2224622
Zainab Mai-bornu
Abiodun Alao’s book is an interesting contribution to the literature on religious violence in Nigeria – a country where religious and ethnic divides come into play at all times. While a lot has been written on religious issues in Nigeria, particularly focused on drawing connections between Islam and violence, Alao goes a step further, and engages Islam, Christianity, and traditional religion in a balanced way that gives equal attention to each. He explains that the fluid nature of religious violence makes the decision on what to include or exclude challenging, particularly given the blurred boundaries between and among religions across time and practices. Alao’s study is based on long-term observation as a student of Nigerian politics and society, historical research, and interviews with actors around the country. He is sensitive to the limits of his study and makes a careful disclaimer at the beginning: ‘none of Nigeria’s three main religious divisions – Christianity, Islam and traditional religions – is inherently violent or violence prone’ (15). This approach is different from other studies of this topic, which makes the book stand out. The five key arguments underpinning this book are set out by the author thus:
{"title":"Rage and carnage in the name of God: religious violence in Nigeria","authors":"Zainab Mai-bornu","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2224622","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2224622","url":null,"abstract":"Abiodun Alao’s book is an interesting contribution to the literature on religious violence in Nigeria – a country where religious and ethnic divides come into play at all times. While a lot has been written on religious issues in Nigeria, particularly focused on drawing connections between Islam and violence, Alao goes a step further, and engages Islam, Christianity, and traditional religion in a balanced way that gives equal attention to each. He explains that the fluid nature of religious violence makes the decision on what to include or exclude challenging, particularly given the blurred boundaries between and among religions across time and practices. Alao’s study is based on long-term observation as a student of Nigerian politics and society, historical research, and interviews with actors around the country. He is sensitive to the limits of his study and makes a careful disclaimer at the beginning: ‘none of Nigeria’s three main religious divisions – Christianity, Islam and traditional religions – is inherently violent or violence prone’ (15). This approach is different from other studies of this topic, which makes the book stand out. The five key arguments underpinning this book are set out by the author thus:","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79876537","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2212578
Paulina Kolata
ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on narratives and experiences of belonging and exclusion among convert members of Three Wheels, a Japanese Shin Buddhist temple in London, to investigate how difference is incorporated into transnational Buddhism. Three Wheels, whose members include both diasporic Japanese and convert Buddhist Europeans, occupies a marginal position within both transnational Shin Buddhism and the UK’s Buddhist (and broader religious) landscape. By embracing individual and collective marginality, I argue, priests and members foster affective connections that allow for a shared minority space to emerge where its diverse members can feel at home. To explore the dynamics of this ‘home-making’, I focus specifically on how convert members negotiate their own space in the community and the processes of inclusion and exclusion through which they navigate the linguistic, religious, and cultural barriers they encounter as convert members of a Japanese Buddhist tradition. This discussion of home-making within Three Wheels as a shared minority space highlights the complex dynamics of minority status and marginality in transnational Buddhism. It also shows how, in this case, convert Buddhists have worked with Asian migrants to build what appears to be a successful mixed local Buddhist sangha that accommodates the diverse needs of its members.
{"title":"Navigating inclusion: ‘home-making’ in the UK Shin Buddhist community","authors":"Paulina Kolata","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2212578","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2212578","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This contribution focuses on narratives and experiences of belonging and exclusion among convert members of Three Wheels, a Japanese Shin Buddhist temple in London, to investigate how difference is incorporated into transnational Buddhism. Three Wheels, whose members include both diasporic Japanese and convert Buddhist Europeans, occupies a marginal position within both transnational Shin Buddhism and the UK’s Buddhist (and broader religious) landscape. By embracing individual and collective marginality, I argue, priests and members foster affective connections that allow for a shared minority space to emerge where its diverse members can feel at home. To explore the dynamics of this ‘home-making’, I focus specifically on how convert members negotiate their own space in the community and the processes of inclusion and exclusion through which they navigate the linguistic, religious, and cultural barriers they encounter as convert members of a Japanese Buddhist tradition. This discussion of home-making within Three Wheels as a shared minority space highlights the complex dynamics of minority status and marginality in transnational Buddhism. It also shows how, in this case, convert Buddhists have worked with Asian migrants to build what appears to be a successful mixed local Buddhist sangha that accommodates the diverse needs of its members.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86593385","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2222623
E. Baffelli, Norihito Takahashi
ABSTRACT This collection brings together five contributions that draw on ethnographic research into a range of cases from Japanese contexts to explore religion and minority from a variety of perspectives. This introduction provides a brief overview of the key questions and themes that the collection addresses. How is minority religion constructed and by whom? What is the impact of minority status on a group or an individual’s marginalisation and exclusion? What are the implications when a particular group, practice, or faction within a larger organisation is defined as ‘minority’? And how do marginalised groups use their minority status to negotiate their place within society or inside their religious community? Taken together, these contributions highlight how minorities emerge within minority groups such as so-called new religions and immigrant religions, how traditional practices or traditions can themselves be minoritised in different social, historical, and geographical contexts, and how minority status can be used as a tool of empowerment as well as exclusion.
{"title":"Religion and minority in Japanese contexts","authors":"E. Baffelli, Norihito Takahashi","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2222623","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2222623","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This collection brings together five contributions that draw on ethnographic research into a range of cases from Japanese contexts to explore religion and minority from a variety of perspectives. This introduction provides a brief overview of the key questions and themes that the collection addresses. How is minority religion constructed and by whom? What is the impact of minority status on a group or an individual’s marginalisation and exclusion? What are the implications when a particular group, practice, or faction within a larger organisation is defined as ‘minority’? And how do marginalised groups use their minority status to negotiate their place within society or inside their religious community? Taken together, these contributions highlight how minorities emerge within minority groups such as so-called new religions and immigrant religions, how traditional practices or traditions can themselves be minoritised in different social, historical, and geographical contexts, and how minority status can be used as a tool of empowerment as well as exclusion.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82031858","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2222601
Marat S. Shterin, Daniel Nilsson Dehanas
This special issue of Religion, State & Society is distinctive for our journal both for its topical novelty and for its elaboration of themes long important to our readership. This is our first special issue focusing on Japan – a country with an immensely rich religious landscape, both historically and contemporarily, with complex intersections between religion and the country’s social fabric and political structures. In exploring religion in Japanese contexts, it engages with the broader themes of minority religions and their relationship with wider society and the state. These minority-related themes have always been central to our journal, as is evident in the sample of articles celebrating our fiftieth volume and in recent special issues on the European Court of Human Rights and Minority Religions (45/3– 4), Conflict, Politics, and the Christian East (48/5), and The Governance of Religious Diversity: Global Comparative Perspectives (50/4), among others. These publications have provided a wealth of data and theoretical ideas for understanding the situation of different types of religious minorities, from ethno-religious groups to new religions, and in relation to different forms of governance, political regimes, and legal institutions. In this collection, our guest editors Erica Baffelli, Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester, and Norihito Takahashi, Professor at the Department of Global Diversity Studies, Toyo University, Japan, and other contributors, take an incisive look at a variety of groups and further elaborate the very concept of minority religion. The five case studies they present show that far from being fixed, minority status is fluid and varies across historical and social contexts, with majority traditions potentially becoming marginalised minorities and minority subgroups emerging within minorities, based on gender, geographical location, ethnicity, or variations in practices. This status tends to be a matter of contention, as ways in which it is constructed by various stakeholders – from religious minorities themselves through academics to the state – have far-reaching implications, ranging from empowerment to exclusion, for those associated with various religious groups and movements. Given the pervasiveness and variety of religious minorities as well as the increasing complexity of the politics around them in our fast-changing globalised world, the findings and insights presented in this issue will be of great interest for readers well beyond Japan.
{"title":"Editors’ introduction","authors":"Marat S. Shterin, Daniel Nilsson Dehanas","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2222601","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2222601","url":null,"abstract":"This special issue of Religion, State & Society is distinctive for our journal both for its topical novelty and for its elaboration of themes long important to our readership. This is our first special issue focusing on Japan – a country with an immensely rich religious landscape, both historically and contemporarily, with complex intersections between religion and the country’s social fabric and political structures. In exploring religion in Japanese contexts, it engages with the broader themes of minority religions and their relationship with wider society and the state. These minority-related themes have always been central to our journal, as is evident in the sample of articles celebrating our fiftieth volume and in recent special issues on the European Court of Human Rights and Minority Religions (45/3– 4), Conflict, Politics, and the Christian East (48/5), and The Governance of Religious Diversity: Global Comparative Perspectives (50/4), among others. These publications have provided a wealth of data and theoretical ideas for understanding the situation of different types of religious minorities, from ethno-religious groups to new religions, and in relation to different forms of governance, political regimes, and legal institutions. In this collection, our guest editors Erica Baffelli, Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester, and Norihito Takahashi, Professor at the Department of Global Diversity Studies, Toyo University, Japan, and other contributors, take an incisive look at a variety of groups and further elaborate the very concept of minority religion. The five case studies they present show that far from being fixed, minority status is fluid and varies across historical and social contexts, with majority traditions potentially becoming marginalised minorities and minority subgroups emerging within minorities, based on gender, geographical location, ethnicity, or variations in practices. This status tends to be a matter of contention, as ways in which it is constructed by various stakeholders – from religious minorities themselves through academics to the state – have far-reaching implications, ranging from empowerment to exclusion, for those associated with various religious groups and movements. Given the pervasiveness and variety of religious minorities as well as the increasing complexity of the politics around them in our fast-changing globalised world, the findings and insights presented in this issue will be of great interest for readers well beyond Japan.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77920126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2220551
I. Reader
{"title":"Spirituality and alternativity in contemporary Japan: beyond religion?","authors":"I. Reader","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2220551","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2220551","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88764597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2213516
Aura Di Febo
ABSTRACT This contribution investigates how young members of the Japanese lay Buddhist group Risshō Kōseikai have constructed their identity as a minority within both a society increasingly disengaged from religion and a rapidly ageing religious organisation. I argue that younger members of Kōseikai experience a condition of double ‘invisibility’ stemming from the intersection of outward and inward marginalisation. Kōseikai youths’ social interactions are informed by a fear of ‘being seen as religious’ resulting from widespread mistrust and negative public perceptions of religion (and new religions in particular). This has translated into a reticence to disclose their religiosity outside the congregation for fear of encountering prejudice and discrimination. But they also experience marginalisation as a minority within a rapidly ageing religious institution. Kōseikai youth have struggled to reconcile the high expectations of senior members with competing commitments and a lack of influence and decision-making power, which has curtailed their capacity for action and religious agency. Members of the older generation, often oblivious to shifting social circumstances and weakening religious commitment among youth, have resisted young members’ calls for change. Invisibility, however, has not only been suffered but also consciously chosen by members, thus reinforcing their marginalisation.
{"title":"‘Seen’ as religious: social and institutional invisibility of Risshō Kōseikai’s youth","authors":"Aura Di Febo","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2213516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2213516","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This contribution investigates how young members of the Japanese lay Buddhist group Risshō Kōseikai have constructed their identity as a minority within both a society increasingly disengaged from religion and a rapidly ageing religious organisation. I argue that younger members of Kōseikai experience a condition of double ‘invisibility’ stemming from the intersection of outward and inward marginalisation. Kōseikai youths’ social interactions are informed by a fear of ‘being seen as religious’ resulting from widespread mistrust and negative public perceptions of religion (and new religions in particular). This has translated into a reticence to disclose their religiosity outside the congregation for fear of encountering prejudice and discrimination. But they also experience marginalisation as a minority within a rapidly ageing religious institution. Kōseikai youth have struggled to reconcile the high expectations of senior members with competing commitments and a lack of influence and decision-making power, which has curtailed their capacity for action and religious agency. Members of the older generation, often oblivious to shifting social circumstances and weakening religious commitment among youth, have resisted young members’ calls for change. Invisibility, however, has not only been suffered but also consciously chosen by members, thus reinforcing their marginalisation.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84485394","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-27DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2222616
Hirofumi Okai, Norihito Takahashi
ABSTRACT Research on religion and minorities in Japan has tended to focus on the relationship between majority and minority religions or between religion and social minorities. This contribution turns to consider the relationship between minorities within ‘minority religions’ and their efforts to coexist. It takes the case of the global Islamic movement Tablighi Jama’at, which started to become powerfully active in Japan with the arrival of large numbers of Muslim migrant workers from various countries in the late 1980s. Since then, Tablighi Jama’at has undergone significant expansion and diversification in Japan. Drawing on both participant observation and interviews, this contribution discusses these developments and related processes of religious and social localisation, which have created tensions between core members, first-generation migrants who make up the majority of participants, and the growing number of second-generation members and Japanese converts who were until recently in a relatively inferior position. This contribution reveals that there can be multiple subgroups within minority groups. The intersection of these various elements can also define power relations and the majority/minority status of people within minority groups. However, the case of Tablighi Jama’at in Japan also shows that power relations between subgroups are potentially fluid.
{"title":"Conflict and coexistence among minorities within minority religions: a case study of Tablighi Jama’at in Japan","authors":"Hirofumi Okai, Norihito Takahashi","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2222616","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2222616","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Research on religion and minorities in Japan has tended to focus on the relationship between majority and minority religions or between religion and social minorities. This contribution turns to consider the relationship between minorities within ‘minority religions’ and their efforts to coexist. It takes the case of the global Islamic movement Tablighi Jama’at, which started to become powerfully active in Japan with the arrival of large numbers of Muslim migrant workers from various countries in the late 1980s. Since then, Tablighi Jama’at has undergone significant expansion and diversification in Japan. Drawing on both participant observation and interviews, this contribution discusses these developments and related processes of religious and social localisation, which have created tensions between core members, first-generation migrants who make up the majority of participants, and the growing number of second-generation members and Japanese converts who were until recently in a relatively inferior position. This contribution reveals that there can be multiple subgroups within minority groups. The intersection of these various elements can also define power relations and the majority/minority status of people within minority groups. However, the case of Tablighi Jama’at in Japan also shows that power relations between subgroups are potentially fluid.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73070521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-05-26DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2023.2200368
I. Reader
ABSTRACT The Shikoku Pilgrimage is nowadays esteemed as a symbol of cultural heritage and tradition in Japan. Its origins are in the ascetic travels of itinerant devotees of the Buddhist figure Kōbō Daishi, who is the central focus of pilgrim devotion and is depicted in pilgrimage lore as a mendicant. These early ascetics relied on the Buddhist practice of mendicancy and were supported by the Shikoku custom of settai (almsgiving). However, in 2007, the pilgrimage temples banned pilgrims from alms solicitation within their precincts, claiming that those doing it (mostly itinerants who are a tiny minority among the pilgrim community) were not genuine pilgrims – even though they were following a practice central to the origins of the pilgrimage. This ban reflects historical patterns in different eras of pilgrims being marginalised, decried as antithetical to the ethos of the society, harassed, and even banned. In discussing the underlying reasons for the recent mendicancy ban, I show how it reflects a wider pattern of marginalising minorities within the pilgrimage community and reveals how religious and political authorities perceive the pilgrimage in any given era.
{"title":"An unwelcome minority: banning Buddhist practices, marginalising itinerants, and constructing heritage in a Japanese pilgrimage","authors":"I. Reader","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2023.2200368","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2023.2200368","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Shikoku Pilgrimage is nowadays esteemed as a symbol of cultural heritage and tradition in Japan. Its origins are in the ascetic travels of itinerant devotees of the Buddhist figure Kōbō Daishi, who is the central focus of pilgrim devotion and is depicted in pilgrimage lore as a mendicant. These early ascetics relied on the Buddhist practice of mendicancy and were supported by the Shikoku custom of settai (almsgiving). However, in 2007, the pilgrimage temples banned pilgrims from alms solicitation within their precincts, claiming that those doing it (mostly itinerants who are a tiny minority among the pilgrim community) were not genuine pilgrims – even though they were following a practice central to the origins of the pilgrimage. This ban reflects historical patterns in different eras of pilgrims being marginalised, decried as antithetical to the ethos of the society, harassed, and even banned. In discussing the underlying reasons for the recent mendicancy ban, I show how it reflects a wider pattern of marginalising minorities within the pilgrimage community and reveals how religious and political authorities perceive the pilgrimage in any given era.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2023-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79852874","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：