Cultural Universals
Conversion, Residues and Ongoing Translation: Narratives of Conversion among South Asian Inter-religious Families
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Amna Majeed
In this paper, I hope to reformulate the notion of religious conversion and broaden the meanings that conversion has attained in the socio-cultural imagination of contemporary India. Focusing upon the narratives of conversion among inter-religious couples and families, I intend to provide descriptions of the diverse ways in which religious conversion is experienced within inter-religious domestic spaces. A study of conversion among inter-religious families is very crucial to understand the transformation of religious subjectivities in the everyday of multi-religious spaces. My research focuses mainly on the daily observance of piety, the engagement with religious beliefs, practices and also addresses questions of religious identity, All these are crucially tied to the gendered subjectivities and conjugal life of my interlocutors as the site of my research is the family and the inter-religious domestic space. Therefore, I engage with narratives of conversion placed at the interstices of gendered and religious difference. This paper shall be based upon fieldwork conducted among inter-religious couples and families in the cities of Delhi, Muzaffarnagar and also among the South Asian diaspora in Canada and the United States. The fieldwork was conducted in early 2016 and late 2017 as a part of my Masters and M.Phil research work. In detailing the narratives of my interlocutors I hope to investigate and problematize the ontological character of conversion in inter-religious domestic spaces and contribute to the discourse around inter-religious marriages, conversion and the everyday of religious life.
The Return to the Sacred: Culture and Religion in Daniel Bell
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Esther Rodríguez Losada
Daniel Bell, an American Jewish sociologist, explains how the attempt to justify the meaning of life through other instances different from religion, has turned out not to be enough. In the last two centuries there has been a decline of religious belief, due to capitalism and the presuppositions of modern culture, among other reasons. Either because it fragments existential unity and disintegrates man into three manifestation spheres: techno-economic, political and cultural, each of them governed by autonomous principles and without the possibility of a unitary sense; or because it seeks an immanent hold on the world based on the idolatry of the "I." The man, in the attempt to give himself meaning, has fallen into nihilism, where he does not find criteria to guide his action beyond individual experience which, far from allowing him to judge his actions with meaning, weakens social ties. Because of that, he proposes a return to the sacred through a resurrection of the memory, that is, to go back on the issues and "cultural universals" faced by the existing consciousness and provide a complete and concrete worldview that places the man in the world and gives him parameters of sense and meaning for his behavior. Bell's vision of religion will be examined and it will be determined if this vision ends up immanently reducing itself into culture or if, on the contrary, it is able to free itself from modern presuppositions and place itself over culture.
Cultivating Positive Dynamics amid Complex Identity Conflict: The Case of “Islam and the West”
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nathan Funk
The unsettling polarization, politicization, and securitization of cultural and religious identities linked to “Islam” and “the West” is a complex transnational phenomenon, within which seemingly localized political and military conflicts have given rise to more widespread tensions and anxieties. These tensions and anxieties, in turn, have been harnessed by populist and often authoritarian political movements in a variety of different contexts, through consistent messaging about how the “other” represents a profound threat to the national, cultural, and religious “self.” Drawing on insights from interdisciplinary conflict analysis as well as from constructivism and identity theory, this paper outlines principles that can be applied both to generate better understanding of Islamic-Western identity politics and to enhance options for peacemaking. After noting dynamic processes through which religious symbols, identities, and values are being invoked to accentuate differences and sharpen hostilities, attention will be given to ways in which cultural and religious dimensions of contemporary conflicts might be transformed through intentional efforts to reframe fundamental issues, foster new narratives, and stimulate the cooperative pursuit of an inclusive, human security agenda.
