Management of Religious Diversity
Code: 44041 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4313228 Social Policy, Employment and Welfare | OT | 0 | 2 |
Contact
- Name:
- Maria del Mar Griera Llonch
- Email:
- MariaDelMar.Griera@uab.cat
Use of Languages
- Principal working language:
- spanish (spa)
Teachers
- María Esther Fernández Mostaza
- Gloria Garcia-Romeral Moreno
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisits.
Objectives and Contextualisation
The growing visibility of religions in the public sphere, coupled with contemporary processes of transformation of religious belongings and identities around the globe, places a crucial importance on the study of religions. In spite of the predictions of secularization theory, religion today remains a key element in understanding the contemporary world, both globally and locally. On the one hand, the importance of studying the relationships between migratory movements, international politics and global religious actors. On the other hand, at the local level, the diversification of urban scenarios and the emergence of new challenges for the accommodation of religious diversity.
The objective of this course is to offer a critical vision of the relationship between religion and politics in the contemporary world. The will is to explore and understand how religion has shaped, and has been shapyed by, the diverse world political, social and cultural transformations. In parallel, the course addresses key issues such as the (complex) relationship between gender and religion, the links between body, spirituality and politics, as well as the articulation of religion(s) and political movements.
The course is taugth from an interdisciplinary approach combining the sociological perspective together with political science, anthropology, international relations and religious studies. The program combines theoretical and critical lectures, together with an ethnography lab where empirical (and applied) research will be shared and discussed.
Competences
- Aplicar l'enfocament de gènere a l'anàlisi de la relació entre mercat laboral, cures i desigualtats socials.
- Design, implement and evaluate social policies and processes for resource redistribution and improvement of citizens' welfare, in different contexts and from a European perspective.
- Recognise the main economic, political, social and cultural transformations of complex societies in order to analyse the fundamental challenges they pose to equality and welfare.
- Use and manage bibliography and IT resources in the field of study.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse the challenges posed by religious diversification to the design of public policies and models for community life.
- Identify gender as one of the main social relations that shape the management of diversity.
- Identify public policy's dilemmas, challenges and main characteristics when decisions are taken on social intervention in the area of management of religious diversity in Europe.
- Use and manage bibliography and IT resources in the field of study.
Content
The course is structured around three axes, each of which develops a set of specific topics that are detailed below.
1. DEFINING RELIGION
a. What is religion? Theoretical debates and conceptual clarification
b. The invention of religion: Colonialism, state-nation formation and power dynamics
2. TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE
a. Secularization, pluralism, fundamentalism and globalization
b. Diaspora, idenity and religion: immigration, gender and religious socialization
c. New forms of spirituality: the gender, the body and the senses
3. THE GOVERNANCE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY: SOCIOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND LEGAL DILEMMAS
a. The visibility of religious diversity: in the street and in public institutions
b. Religious minorities and urban governance: the case of Islam
c. Public policies and the local governance of religious diversity
- Religion in prison: challenges, answers and dilemmas;
- Gestational death and religious diversity: approach models;
- Literature, Islam and gender: fiction as a political weapon, and
- Local management of diversity: the case of the Office of Religious Affairs of the City Council of Barcelona.
The course will include guest lecturers and short visits to local institutions and religious communities.
Methodology
The course is structured around the three following thematic blocks:
1. DEFINING RELIGION
2. TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RELIGIOUS LANDSCAPE
3. THE GOVERNANCE OF RELIGION. SOCIOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL AND LEGAL DILEMES
The course will combine theoretical sessions together with the 'Ethnographic Lab" where empirical cases will be discussed.
Class attendance is compulsory requiring of 80% presence mininum.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Team work | 35 | 1.4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Theoretical sessions | 35 | 1.4 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Ethnographic Lab | 20 | 0.8 | 2, 3, 4 |
Assessment
The subject is evaluated with three types of exercises:
1. A final non-memorative test in which the student must demonstrate that he/she has understood and assimilated the main contents of the program. This test will have a weight of 40% of the mark.
2. An empirical work (preferably in a group of three) that, with an ethnographic approach, will develop some of the topics addressed in the Lab, accompanied by group tutorials with one of the tutors. This work is 50% of the final grade.
3. Finally, although it is not mandatory to pass the subject, there will be an oral/public defense exercise for 8 minutes of the empirical work. This evaluation will be partially supervised and evaluated by experts in the subject. This test will have a weight of 10%.
The possibility of making up the final test is considered if the mark obtained is equal to or greater than 4.
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethnography Lab | 50 | 20 | 0.8 | 2, 3, 4 |
| Exam | 40 | 30 | 1.2 | 1, 2, 3 |
| Oral Presentation | 10 | 10 | 0.4 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
Bibliography
Main references
Abu‐Lughod, L. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American anthropologist, 104(3): 783-790.
Aune, K., Lovheim, M., Giorgi, A., Toldy, T., & Utriainen, T. (2017). Introduction: Is secularism bad for women? La laïcité nuit-elle aux femmes? Social Compass, 64(4): 449-480.
Asad, T., Brown, W., Butler, J., & Mahmood, S. (2013). Is critique secular?: blasphemy, injury, and free speech. Oxford University Press.
Astor, A. (2012). Memory, community, and opposition to mosques: the case of Badalona. Theory and society, 41(4): 325-349.
Becci, I., Burchardt, M., & Giorda, M. (2017). Religious super-diversity and spatial strategies in two European cities. Current Sociology, 65(1): 73-91.
Berger, P (1999). “The desecularization of the world: A global overview”. Berger, P. The desecularization of the world. Washington: Eerdmans: 1-18.
Berger, P (1967). El dosel sagrado. Para una teoría sociologica de la religión. Barcelona: Kairós, 1999: 241-246.
Casanova, J (2007). “La inmigración y el nuevo pluralismo religioso: una comparación Unión Europea/Estados Unidos”. Revista CIDOB d'afers internacionals, 77.
Chamorro, Sol Tarrés, and Javier Rosón Lorente. ¿Musulmanes o inmigrantes? La institucionalización del islam en España (1860-1992). Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals 115 (2017): 165-185.
De Galembert, C. (2005). The city's ‘nod of approval’for the Mantes-la-Jolie mosque project: Mistaken traces of recognition. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 31(6): 1141-1159.
Estruch,J. (1993). L’Opus Dei i les seves paradoxes. Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Fenn, R. (2007). The Classics in the Sociology of Religion: An Ambiguous Legacy. A.Turner, Brian S. (ed). The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion: 33-52.
Fernandez-Mostaza, M. E., & Muñoz Henriquez, W. (2018). A Cristo moreno in Barcelona: The Staging of Identity-Based Unity and Difference in the Procession of the Lord of Miracles. Religions, 9(4), 121.
Griera, M. (2012). Public policies, interfaith associations and religious minorities: A new policy paradigm? Evidence from the case of Barcelona. Social Compass, 59(4), 570-587.
Griera, M., Martínez-Ariño, J., Clot-Garrell, A., & Garcia-Romeral, G. (2015). Religión e instituciones públicas en España. Hospitales y prisiones en perspectiva comparada. Revista internacional de sociología, 73(3).
Griera, M. (2017). Yoga in penitentiary settings: Transcendence, spirituality, and self-improvement. Human Studies, 40(1): 77-100.
Hervieu-Léger, D (2005). La religión, hilo de memoria. Barcelona: Herder.
Laurence J. (2006). Managing transnational Islam: Muslims and the state in Western Europe. En C. Parsons & T. Smeeding (Ed.), Immigration and the Transformation of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 253-275.
Levitt, P. (2003). “You know, Abraham was really the first immigrant”: Religion and transnational migration. International Migration Review, 37(3): 847-873.
Luckmann, T (2008). “Reflexiones sobre religión y moralidad” a Bericat, E (coord.) El fenómeno religioso: presencia de la religión y de la religiosidad en las sociedadesavanzadas. Andalucía: Junta de Andalucía.
Mahmood, S. (2011). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject. Princeton University Press.
Martínez-Ariño, J. (2017). Conceptualising the roleofcities inthe governance of religious diversity in Europe. Current Sociology: 1-18.
Obadia, L. (2011). Is Buddhism like a hamburger? Buddhism and the market economy in a globalized world. A Lionel Obadia, Donald C. Wood (eds). The Economics of Religion: Anthropological Approaches: 99-120. United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Robbins, J. (2004). The globalization of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 33: 117-143.
Klemkaite, L. (2017). De los imames a los nuevos predicadores: liderazgos en la interpretación del islam en Europa. Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals, 115: 141-164.
Sointu, E. and Woodhead, L. (2008). Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47: 259–276.
Soper, C i Fetzer, J (2007). “Religious Institutions, Church-State History and Muslim Mobilization in Britain, France, and Germany”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33 (6): 933-944.
Tatari, E. (2009). “Theories of the State Accommodation of Islamic Religious Practices in Western Europe”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35 (2): 271-288.
Vásqez, M. A., & Marquardt, M. F. (2000). Globalizing the rainbow madonna: Old time religion in the present age. Theory, Culture & Society, 17(4): 119-143.
Voas, David, & Fenella Fleischmann. (2012). Islam moves west: Religious change in the first and second generations. Annual Review of Sociology, 38: 525-545.
Specific bibliography will be provided to the students once they have participated in the Lab and selected the topic of the essay work.