The last decade has seen an unexpected return of the religious, and with it the creation of new kinds of social forms alongside new fusions of political and religious realms that high modernity kept distinct. For a fuller understanding of what this means for society in the context of globalization, it is necessary to rethink the relationship between the religious and the secular; the contributors – all leading scholars in anthropology – do just that, some even arguing that secularization itself now takes a religious form. Combining theoretical reflection with vivid ethnographic explorations, this essential collection is designed to advance a critical understanding of social and personal religious experience in today’s world.
Table of Content
Introduction: Religiosities toward a Future—in Pursuit of the New Millennium
Bruce Kapferer, Annelin Eriksen, and Kari Telle
Chapter 1. The Politics of Conviction: Faith on the Neo-liberal Frontier
Jean Comaroff
Chapter 2. Strategic Secularism: Bible Advocacy in England
Matthew Engelke
Chapter 3. Pentecostal Networks and the Spirit of Globalization: On the Social Productivity of Ritual Forms
Joel Robbins
Chapter 4. Healing the Nation: In Search of Unity through the Holy Spirit in Vanuatu
Annelin Eriksen
Chapter 5. What Happened to Cargo Cults? Material Religions in Melanesia and the West
Ton Otto
Chapter 6. Gold for a Golden Age: Sacred Money and Islamic Freedom in a Global Sufi Order
Nils Bubandt
Chapter 7. Sri Lankan Civil Society and Its Fanatics
Rohan Bastin
Chapter 8. Dharma Power: Searching for Security in Post–New Order Indonesia
Kari Telle
Chapter 9. An Ancient Case of Interrogation and Torture
Bruce Lincoln
Chapter 10. The Terrorist as Humanitarian
Faisal Devji
Chapter 11. Reflections on the Rise of Legal Theology: Law and Religion in the Twenty-First Century
John L. Comaroff
About the author
Annelin Eriksen is Associate Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. She has worked since 1995 in Vanuatu, first on Ambrym island and later in the capital Port Vila. Her work deals with social and cultural change, Christianity, and gender relations. Her most recent book is Gender, Christianity and Change (2008).
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