Pub Date : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2054264
Gabriele Shenar
ABSTRACT Taking cognisance of the recent theoretical concern with relational ontologies, this contribution explores the dynamic interplay between conceptions of religion, animism, and pilgrimage by focusing on the agency of pilgrim passports and stamps as an affective force to enhance our understanding of the idea of pilgrimage as materially grounded within wider relations of human and non-human agents. Drawing on an emergent body of literature that subscribes to the new material turn, I analyse pilgrimage walks, pilgrimage events, and pilgrimage entrepreneurship in Kent, England, as complex assemblages of people, things, places, and immaterial thought. The contribution thus foregrounds the interweaving of materials, potentials, and processes in which human and non-human agency, including pilgrim passports and stamps, may all be implicated in generating ‘enchantments’ that act as an affective or animating force in the revitalisation of pilgrimage routes, and the narratives, experiential, ethical, and conceptual formations they elicit in Kent and beyond.
{"title":"Affective stamps: the animating force of pilgrim stamps","authors":"Gabriele Shenar","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2054264","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2054264","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Taking cognisance of the recent theoretical concern with relational ontologies, this contribution explores the dynamic interplay between conceptions of religion, animism, and pilgrimage by focusing on the agency of pilgrim passports and stamps as an affective force to enhance our understanding of the idea of pilgrimage as materially grounded within wider relations of human and non-human agents. Drawing on an emergent body of literature that subscribes to the new material turn, I analyse pilgrimage walks, pilgrimage events, and pilgrimage entrepreneurship in Kent, England, as complex assemblages of people, things, places, and immaterial thought. The contribution thus foregrounds the interweaving of materials, potentials, and processes in which human and non-human agency, including pilgrim passports and stamps, may all be implicated in generating ‘enchantments’ that act as an affective or animating force in the revitalisation of pilgrimage routes, and the narratives, experiential, ethical, and conceptual formations they elicit in Kent and beyond.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"60 1","pages":"162 - 181"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83963751","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2067458
J. Eade, N. Stadler
ABSTRACT In this collection of three articles that draw on ethnographic research and a more theoretical afterword, we seek to stimulate debate and substantive analysis by looking beyond the dominant approaches towards religion, state, and society through a focus on pilgrimage from a relational perspective. Rather than draw on explanations that concentrate on human actions, meanings, and interpretations, such as those informed by representational, interpretive, and hermeneutic approaches to human thought and practice, we explore the relationship between humans and those who could be defined as ‘other-than-humans’ or ‘non-humans’, such as animals, plants, and things, and who are seen as possessing their own being and immanent agency where they affect humans rather than just being the object of our affections or control. We begin by introducing the dominant approaches towards religion and pilgrimage and then outline the ways in which alternative avenues have been explored through a relational approach towards the links between people, places, and materialities. The four contributions are then introduced and the key points drawn out before discussing how this collection can encourage the exploration of avenues beyond the dominant approach, not only in pilgrimage research but also in the study of religion, state, and society more generally.
{"title":"An introduction to pilgrimage, animism, and agency: putting humans in their place","authors":"J. Eade, N. Stadler","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2067458","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2067458","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this collection of three articles that draw on ethnographic research and a more theoretical afterword, we seek to stimulate debate and substantive analysis by looking beyond the dominant approaches towards religion, state, and society through a focus on pilgrimage from a relational perspective. Rather than draw on explanations that concentrate on human actions, meanings, and interpretations, such as those informed by representational, interpretive, and hermeneutic approaches to human thought and practice, we explore the relationship between humans and those who could be defined as ‘other-than-humans’ or ‘non-humans’, such as animals, plants, and things, and who are seen as possessing their own being and immanent agency where they affect humans rather than just being the object of our affections or control. We begin by introducing the dominant approaches towards religion and pilgrimage and then outline the ways in which alternative avenues have been explored through a relational approach towards the links between people, places, and materialities. The four contributions are then introduced and the key points drawn out before discussing how this collection can encourage the exploration of avenues beyond the dominant approach, not only in pilgrimage research but also in the study of religion, state, and society more generally.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"522 1","pages":"137 - 146"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80163390","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2061829
D. Almeida
ABSTRACT After the terrorist attacks of January 2015, laïcité – the particular French version of secularism – has been at the centre of government efforts to reaffirm republican values and strengthen national cohesion. One of the most emblematic measures in this quest was the decision to have state schools celebrate a national day of laïcité. This article seeks to understand how French secularism has been performed during these commemorations. It draws from the assumption that secularism does not only consist of rules on church-state relations and on how religion may or may not manifest itself in the public sphere, but also of representations and routinised practices of secularity. Through an online analysis of nearly 150 school activities organised between 2015 and 2020 across France, this article shows how laïcité remains an indeterminate construct. Commemorations typically take the form of tree-planting ceremonies, re-enacting rituals, and visual or performing arts projects. In many cases, laïcité is diluted in civil religious rituals to the point that it sometimes becomes an empty signifier of patriotism. Other projects, however, reinterpret laïcité as a condition for multicultural citizenship and, in doing so, propose counter-narratives to the notion that multiple identities pose a threat to the Republic.
{"title":"Doing secularism: commemorating the national day of laïcité in French schools","authors":"D. Almeida","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2061829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2061829","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT After the terrorist attacks of January 2015, laïcité – the particular French version of secularism – has been at the centre of government efforts to reaffirm republican values and strengthen national cohesion. One of the most emblematic measures in this quest was the decision to have state schools celebrate a national day of laïcité. This article seeks to understand how French secularism has been performed during these commemorations. It draws from the assumption that secularism does not only consist of rules on church-state relations and on how religion may or may not manifest itself in the public sphere, but also of representations and routinised practices of secularity. Through an online analysis of nearly 150 school activities organised between 2015 and 2020 across France, this article shows how laïcité remains an indeterminate construct. Commemorations typically take the form of tree-planting ceremonies, re-enacting rituals, and visual or performing arts projects. In many cases, laïcité is diluted in civil religious rituals to the point that it sometimes becomes an empty signifier of patriotism. Other projects, however, reinterpret laïcité as a condition for multicultural citizenship and, in doing so, propose counter-narratives to the notion that multiple identities pose a threat to the Republic.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"208 - 223"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86898724","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2051392
J. Hellman
ABSTRACT This contribution explores a specific form of knowledge used by a pilgrim leader on the island of Java which constitutes the basis of his religious legitimacy and political agency. By locating the source of his knowledge in his personal relationships with the ancient kings of Pajajaran, the pilgrim leader creates a position from where he can criticise the contemporary political and religious leadership of Indonesia. He builds the authority for this position on his direct communication with the ancestors, and by demonstrating his ability to infuse various objects and material forms with powers to obscure the distinction between past and present. The pilgrim leader’s knowledge facilitates access to the power of water for pilgrims in various ways. Relationships with specific ancestors are established and validated through nocturnal ‘possessions’ and detailed knowledge about the spiritual landscape of Sancang, including the powerful springs of Sumur Tujuh. The ethnography is based on several pilgrimages in West Java, but especially focuses on one occasion when water played a crucial role in blurring the demarcation between the living and the dead, between humans and spirits.
{"title":"The power of water: spirits and knowledge in West Java","authors":"J. Hellman","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2051392","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2051392","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This contribution explores a specific form of knowledge used by a pilgrim leader on the island of Java which constitutes the basis of his religious legitimacy and political agency. By locating the source of his knowledge in his personal relationships with the ancient kings of Pajajaran, the pilgrim leader creates a position from where he can criticise the contemporary political and religious leadership of Indonesia. He builds the authority for this position on his direct communication with the ancestors, and by demonstrating his ability to infuse various objects and material forms with powers to obscure the distinction between past and present. The pilgrim leader’s knowledge facilitates access to the power of water for pilgrims in various ways. Relationships with specific ancestors are established and validated through nocturnal ‘possessions’ and detailed knowledge about the spiritual landscape of Sancang, including the powerful springs of Sumur Tujuh. The ethnography is based on several pilgrimages in West Java, but especially focuses on one occasion when water played a crucial role in blurring the demarcation between the living and the dead, between humans and spirits.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"31 1","pages":"147 - 161"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82255391","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2054265
John Kapusta
ABSTRACT In this contribution, I provide an ethnography of the Maya New Year’s pilgrimage and sacrifice ritual, in which a delicate relatedness between people and animate mountains is established, enacted, and expressed. Far from the body–spirit, object–subject, and nature–culture dualities, these mountains appear to be bodily-souled and immanent-transcendent beings that participate, together with people, in the ongoing process of shaping a single shared world. The pilgrimage, therefore, is a route along which a larger than human community is being formed and along which the world – in all its contingency, fragility, and precariousness – is continuously brought into existence. This existentially animist cosmology situates humans and nonhumans within the-world-in-formation, rather than the-world-in-representation of some pre-existent cultural and political contents. Finally, I discuss some of the recent attempts to challenge representationalist approaches in Maya studies, arguing that they have escaped the tenets of representationalism just to fall into the trap of western alternative spirituality.
{"title":"The pilgrimage to the living mountains: representationalism, animism, and the Maya","authors":"John Kapusta","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2054265","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2054265","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this contribution, I provide an ethnography of the Maya New Year’s pilgrimage and sacrifice ritual, in which a delicate relatedness between people and animate mountains is established, enacted, and expressed. Far from the body–spirit, object–subject, and nature–culture dualities, these mountains appear to be bodily-souled and immanent-transcendent beings that participate, together with people, in the ongoing process of shaping a single shared world. The pilgrimage, therefore, is a route along which a larger than human community is being formed and along which the world – in all its contingency, fragility, and precariousness – is continuously brought into existence. This existentially animist cosmology situates humans and nonhumans within the-world-in-formation, rather than the-world-in-representation of some pre-existent cultural and political contents. Finally, I discuss some of the recent attempts to challenge representationalist approaches in Maya studies, arguing that they have escaped the tenets of representationalism just to fall into the trap of western alternative spirituality.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"64 1","pages":"182 - 198"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84359986","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2049061
J. Pressman
Stacey Gutkowski, secularism, religion, and conflict studies, closely investigates the perceptions of Israel’s non-religious Jews. She studies Israel’s particular secular identity group, ‘ hiloni ’ Israelis (plural: hilonim ), through in-depth interviews largely with those in the millennial generation, born between 1980 and 1995 inclusive (51). In a society increasingly saturated with nationalist discourse and ethnic imperatives, Gutkowski argues that hiloni millennials are influenced by that discourse but also by a strong sense of pragmatism, personal experience, and a preference for socioeconomic success even at the expense of avoiding the elephant in the room, the Israeli occupation of Palestinians and their land. The book is an engaging extension to the non-religious realm of the many studies that evaluate religious people in the context of violent, nationalist struggles. Furthermore, in prior scholarship the usual understanding of the secular – as in both the general concept and the people who consider themselves as such – is grounded in western and Protestant settings. Gutkowski, however, asks a related but different question: What might the secular (or secular-ism) not rooted in Protestantism look like? Thus, the case selection is focused on Jewish people in Israel. She the right-wing, nationalist, militaristic, and/or religious on Israeli the air national is pervasive’
{"title":"Religion, war and Israel’s secular millennials: Being reasonable?","authors":"J. Pressman","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2049061","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2049061","url":null,"abstract":"Stacey Gutkowski, secularism, religion, and conflict studies, closely investigates the perceptions of Israel’s non-religious Jews. She studies Israel’s particular secular identity group, ‘ hiloni ’ Israelis (plural: hilonim ), through in-depth interviews largely with those in the millennial generation, born between 1980 and 1995 inclusive (51). In a society increasingly saturated with nationalist discourse and ethnic imperatives, Gutkowski argues that hiloni millennials are influenced by that discourse but also by a strong sense of pragmatism, personal experience, and a preference for socioeconomic success even at the expense of avoiding the elephant in the room, the Israeli occupation of Palestinians and their land. The book is an engaging extension to the non-religious realm of the many studies that evaluate religious people in the context of violent, nationalist struggles. Furthermore, in prior scholarship the usual understanding of the secular – as in both the general concept and the people who consider themselves as such – is grounded in western and Protestant settings. Gutkowski, however, asks a related but different question: What might the secular (or secular-ism) not rooted in Protestantism look like? Thus, the case selection is focused on Jewish people in Israel. She the right-wing, nationalist, militaristic, and/or religious on Israeli the air national is pervasive’","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"29 1","pages":"242 - 243"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77585772","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 : 2022-03-15DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2022.2061828
Ebru Öztürk
ABSTRACT Extant scholarship on ontological security in sociology has focused on the significance of home as a source of security. In this article, I argue that when Iranian asylum-seeking converts lose faith in mainstream primary institutions (such as the public and political institutions formed and shaped by Iran’s religious autocracy), they turn to Christianity to find a source of such significance. This conversion is a secondary institution that shields them from existential anxiety and homelessness, while the primary institution has become meaningless. The new home that this secondary institution offers increases their sense of ontological security and minimises their existential anxiety. Through conversion, they have become ‘at home’ in the secondary institution, and the self has been re-institutionalised.
{"title":"Finding a new home through conversion: the ontological security of Iranians converting to Christianity in Sweden","authors":"Ebru Öztürk","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2022.2061828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2022.2061828","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Extant scholarship on ontological security in sociology has focused on the significance of home as a source of security. In this article, I argue that when Iranian asylum-seeking converts lose faith in mainstream primary institutions (such as the public and political institutions formed and shaped by Iran’s religious autocracy), they turn to Christianity to find a source of such significance. This conversion is a secondary institution that shields them from existential anxiety and homelessness, while the primary institution has become meaningless. The new home that this secondary institution offers increases their sense of ontological security and minimises their existential anxiety. Through conversion, they have become ‘at home’ in the secondary institution, and the self has been re-institutionalised.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"21 1","pages":"224 - 239"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83233628","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 : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2021.2020540
Z. Knox
ABSTRACT To celebrate our fiftieth volume, Religion, State & Society Editorial Board member and book reviews editor Zoe Knox interviewed former editor Philip Walters on the journal’s founding, development, and influence. This text represents an edited version of their correspondence in November 2021, and their conversation will continue in a podcast which will be made available on the journal’s website later in 2022.
{"title":"An interview with Philip Walters for Religion, State & Society","authors":"Z. Knox","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2021.2020540","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2021.2020540","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To celebrate our fiftieth volume, Religion, State & Society Editorial Board member and book reviews editor Zoe Knox interviewed former editor Philip Walters on the journal’s founding, development, and influence. This text represents an edited version of their correspondence in November 2021, and their conversation will continue in a podcast which will be made available on the journal’s website later in 2022.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"31 1","pages":"118 - 129"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88770530","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 : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2021.2020562
Gabrielle Oliveira, Marisa Segel, Olivia Barbieri, Virginia Alex
ABSTRACT Examining the relationship between Catholic priests and Latino parishioners, we explored how five clergy understood their roles in easing the way for immigrants to the Boston area. Just as the Catholic Church welcomed European immigrants of an earlier period, priests believed that their parishes continued to embrace a newer wave of immigrants during a time when Latinos experienced heightened fear of deportation under the immigration policies that took place between 2017 and 2021. However, an alternative narrative emerged in this study, in which priests acknowledged their own reliance on Latino parishioners to revitalise their church and fill their pews as their numbers of white members were dwindling. We argue that priests’ descriptions of their interactions with Latino worshippers highlight their move to elasticise the Catholic Church to accommodate the needs of new immigrant families. Priests then seek to establish a loyalty among Latino parishioners which serves to shield them from the criticism of white Americans in the wake of the child sexual abuse scandal.
{"title":"Exploring elasticity and shielding in the Catholic Church: priests’ relationships with Latino worshippers","authors":"Gabrielle Oliveira, Marisa Segel, Olivia Barbieri, Virginia Alex","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2021.2020562","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2021.2020562","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Examining the relationship between Catholic priests and Latino parishioners, we explored how five clergy understood their roles in easing the way for immigrants to the Boston area. Just as the Catholic Church welcomed European immigrants of an earlier period, priests believed that their parishes continued to embrace a newer wave of immigrants during a time when Latinos experienced heightened fear of deportation under the immigration policies that took place between 2017 and 2021. However, an alternative narrative emerged in this study, in which priests acknowledged their own reliance on Latino parishioners to revitalise their church and fill their pews as their numbers of white members were dwindling. We argue that priests’ descriptions of their interactions with Latino worshippers highlight their move to elasticise the Catholic Church to accommodate the needs of new immigrant families. Priests then seek to establish a loyalty among Latino parishioners which serves to shield them from the criticism of white Americans in the wake of the child sexual abuse scandal.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"10 1","pages":"96 - 117"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88139218","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 : 2022-01-01DOI: 10.1080/09637494.2021.2010906
D. Ezzy, Rebecca Banham, Lori G. Beaman
ABSTRACT This article examines the role of anti-discrimination legislation in the negotiation of religious difference in the Australian state of Victoria. We argue for the importance of a relational conceptualisation of the negotiation of religious diversity that draws on concepts of etiquette and limitations, deep equality, and substantive equality. The Victorian legislation allows the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to ‘mediate’ the relationships between the people and groups that come before it. VCAT mediates relationships in three ways: 1. Providing a forum for constructive intervention in cases of problematic tension between groups, and in doing so facilitating the development of an ‘etiquette’ for the negotiation of power dynamics, typically between (historically) empowered and disempowered groups in Australia. 2. Providing a forum for making transparent examples of latent and covert discrimination and exclusion, encouraging participants to engage in reflection upon potential future courses of action. 3. The provision (or refusal) of exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act, providing guidance about the management of religious difference in the public sphere.
{"title":"Religious anti-discrimination legislation and the negotiation of difference in Victoria, Australia","authors":"D. Ezzy, Rebecca Banham, Lori G. Beaman","doi":"10.1080/09637494.2021.2010906","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2021.2010906","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines the role of anti-discrimination legislation in the negotiation of religious difference in the Australian state of Victoria. We argue for the importance of a relational conceptualisation of the negotiation of religious diversity that draws on concepts of etiquette and limitations, deep equality, and substantive equality. The Victorian legislation allows the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to ‘mediate’ the relationships between the people and groups that come before it. VCAT mediates relationships in three ways: 1. Providing a forum for constructive intervention in cases of problematic tension between groups, and in doing so facilitating the development of an ‘etiquette’ for the negotiation of power dynamics, typically between (historically) empowered and disempowered groups in Australia. 2. Providing a forum for making transparent examples of latent and covert discrimination and exclusion, encouraging participants to engage in reflection upon potential future courses of action. 3. The provision (or refusal) of exemptions to the Equal Opportunity Act, providing guidance about the management of religious difference in the public sphere.","PeriodicalId":45069,"journal":{"name":"Religion State & Society","volume":"1 1","pages":"22 - 39"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75493086","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}
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