Management of Religious Diversity
Code: 44041 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4313228 Social Policy, Employment and Welfare | OT | 0 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- María Esther Fernández Mostaza
- Email:
- MariaEsther.Fernandez@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
- 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.
- To apply the gender approach in the analysis of the relationship among labour market, cares and social inequality.
- 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.Rethinking religion
a. What is religion? Theoretical discussions and conceptual clarification
b. The invention of religion
2 Transformations of the religious landscape today
a.. Secularization, pluralism, fundamentalism and globalization
b. Believing in the diaspora: migration, gender and socialization
c. New forms of spirituality: the body and the meaning in dispute
3. Manage religion? Dilemmas and opportunities
a. Frameworks for the recognition of religious diversity, models of the Church - State relationship
b. Local management of diversity. Challenges and experiences of urban governance.
c. Accommodation in public institutions: religious diversity in prisons, hospitals and educational centers.
The program of the subject is complemented by an applied reflection laboratory that will complement the presentation of the program. Some of the practical cases that will be addressed are the following:
- 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 Barcelona City Council Office of Religious Affairs.
For the approach and deepening in the practical cases, there will be invited professors and visits outside the classroom and field work will also be carried out.
Methodology
During the theoretical sessions, the lectures will be combined with either the debate on a reading or article from the referenced bibliography, and / or the presence of a guest expert on the subject that will give a lecture with its subsequent debate. .
Class attendance is mandatory, requiring a minimum of 80% attendance.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
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 from three types of evidence:
1. A non-rote written test in which the student must show that he / she has assimilated the main contents of the program. This test will have a weight of 40% of the grade and is not necessarily face-to-face.
2. An empirical work (preferably in a group of three people) that, with an ethnographic approach, will develop some of the topics covered in the Laboratory, accompanied by group tutorials with one of the persons in charge of the subject. The weight of this work is 50% of the final grade.
3. Finally, although it is not mandatory to pass the course, there will be an oral and public defense exercise for 8 minutes of the content of the empirical work. This evaluation will be partially supervised and evaluated by experts in the subject matter. This proof will have a weight of 10%.
The possibility of recovering the final test is contemplated if the grade 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, Lila. (2002). Do Muslim women really need saving? Anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others. American anthropologist, 104(3): 783-790.
Aune, Kristen et al. (2017). Introduction: Is secularism bad for women? La laïcité nuit-elle aux femmes? Social Compass, 64(4): 449-480.
Alal Asad; Brown, Wendy; Butler, Judith & Mahmood, Saba.(2013). Is critique secular?: blasphemy, injury, and free speech. Oxford University Press.
Astor, Avi. (2012). Memory, community, and opposition to mosques: the case of Badalona. Theory and society, 41(4): 325-349.
Becci, Irene; Burchardt, Marian & Giorda, Maria-Chiara. (2017). Religious super-diversity and spatial strategies in two European cities. Current Sociology, 65(1): 73-91.
Berger, Peter L. (1999). “The desecularization of the world: A global overview”. Berger, Peter L. The desecularization of the world. Washington: Eerdmans: 1-18.
Berger, Peter L. (1967). El dosel sagrado. Para una teoría sociologica de la religión. Barcelona: Kairós, 1999: 241-246.
Casanova, José. (2007). “La inmigración y el nuevo pluralismo religioso: una comparación Unión Europea/Estados Unidos”. Revista CIDOB d'afers internacionals, 77.
Chamorro Tarrés, Sol, & Rosón Lorente, Javier. ¿Musulmanes o inmigrantes? La institucionalización del islam en España (1860-1992). Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals 115 (2017): 165-185.
De Galembert, Claire. (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, Joan. (1993). L’Opus Dei i les seves paradoxes. Barcelona: Edicions 62.
Fenn, Richard. (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.
Fernández-Mostaza, M. Esther & Muñoz Henriquez, Wilson. (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, Mar; Martínez-Ariño, Julia; Clot-Garrell, Anna, & Garcia-Romeral, Gloria. (2015). Religión e instituciones públicas en España. Hospitales y prisiones en perspectiva comparada. Revista internacional de sociología, 73(3).
Griera, Mar. (2017). Yoga in penitentiary settings: Transcendence, spirituality, and self-improvement. Human Studies, 40(1): 77-100.
Hervieu-Léger, Danielle. (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, Peggy. (2003). “You know, Abraham was really the first immigrant”: Religion and transnational migration. International Migration Review, 37(3): 847-873.
Luckmann, Thomas (2008). “Reflexiones sobre religión y moralidad” a Bericat, E (coord.) El fenómeno religioso: presencia de la religión y de la religiosidad en las sociedades avanzadas. Andalucía: Junta de Andalucía.
Mahmood, S. (2011). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feministsubject. Princeton University Press.
Martínez-Ariño, Julia. (2017). Conceptualising the roleofcities inthe governance of religious diversity in Europe. Current Sociology: 1-18.
Obadia, Lionel. (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, Joel. (2004). The globalization of Pentecostal and charismatic Christianity. Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 33: 117-143.
Klemkaite, Lina. (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, Eeva & Woodhead, Linda. (2008). Spirituality, Gender, and Expressive Selfhood. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 47: 259–276.
Soper, Christopher & Fetzer, Joel (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, Eren. (2009). “Theories of the State Accommodation of Islamic Religious Practices in Western Europe”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 35 (2): 271-288.
Vásqez, Manuel A., & Marquardt, Marie F. (2000). Globalizing the rainbow madonna: Old time religion in the present age. Theory, Culture & Society, 17(4): 119-143.
Voas, David, & Fleischmann, Fenella. (2012). Islam moves west: Religious change in the first and second generations. Annual Review of Sociology, 38: 525-545.
Software
There is no specific one.