412
Religion and National Identity

Wednesday, 18 July 2018: 10:30-12:20
Location: 717A (MTCC SOUTH BUILDING)
RC22 Sociology of Religion (host committee)

Language: English

Pluralization as a result of migration and globalization challenges individual attitudes and beliefs as well as the social cohesion of communities and whole societies. One answer to these challenges lies in “cultural defense”-mechanisms - attempts to close groups for newcomers by referring to particular cultural features. These features most often refer to religious logics of identification or to ethnicity. The mixture of both is yet not sufficiently understood by social researchers.

What remains clear, however, is that different governmental, social and legal circumstances moderate the relationship between religious and national identities. Therefore, papers in this session shall shed light on such moderating conditions and institutional settings. We are specifically interested in state-related contexts such as laws and regulations, welfare systems, policies and politics. We invite papers that jointly look at religion and national identity, focusing on one of the following topics:

(a)   What kinds of relationships are observable? How do religious and national identities (and identifications) interrelate? Can they be compared and classified?

(b)   Which kinds of circumstances matter? How important are particular historical trajectories, national legal regulations, or the acceptance of the human rights system?

(c)    How can the impact of economic, political and social structures be theoretically conceptualized and empirically measured, and what data are available?

Empirical (multi-level) analyses and comparative case studies are as welcome as theory and methodology papers.

Session Organizers:
Annette SCHNABEL, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Dueseldorf, Germany and Miroljub JEVTIC, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Chair:
Annette SCHNABEL, Heinrich-Heine-Universitaet Dueseldorf, Germany
Co-Chair:
Miroljub JEVTIC, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Oral Presentations
Religious and National Identity in Trans-National New Religious Movements
Eileen BARKER, London School of Economics, United Kingdom
Religious Nationalism in Japanese Politics in the 2010s
Michiaki OKUYAMA, Nanzan University, Japan
Religious Rituals As a Way of Living with Conflicting Ethnoreligious Nationalisms in Sri Lanka
Anton Piyarathne DEEGALLA DURAGE, The Open University of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka
Believe or Behave. the Importance of Religion and Customs/Traditions for the National Identity of European Countries
Klara PLECITA, Institute of Sociology, CAS, Czech Republic; Dana HAMPLOVA, Institute of Sociology, CAS, Czech Republic