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
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Teachers
- María Esther Fernández Mostaza
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 detailed below.
1. Rethinking religion
a. What is religion?
b. Theoretical debates around religion
c. Conceptual clarification
d. 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 sense in dispute
3. Managing religion? Dilemmas and opportunities
a. Frameworks for the recognition of religious diversity, models of Church-State relations
b. Local management of diversity. Challenges and experiences of urban governance
c. Accommodation to public institutions: prisons, hospitals, and educational centers
Methodology
During the theoretical sessions, master classes will be combined with the debate on a reading or article of the referenced bibliography and / or the presence of a guest expert in the subject treated, who will give a conference with the subsequent debate.
The program of the subject is complemented by a Laboratory of applied reflection that will contribute to the oral presentation of the topics of the program by the students, which can revolve around some of the practical cases that will be addressed:
- Gestational death and religious diversity in hospitals
- Manifestations of religiosity in urban space
- New spiritualities; Old beliefs
To deepen the practical cases, organized visits will also be carried out outside the classroom.
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, 4 |
| 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. There will be an oral and public defense exercise for 8 minutes (10%) of the content of the empirical work.
3. Finally, discussions based on a paper wiht experts in the subject matter.
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.
Despret, Vinciane. (2021). A la salud de los muertos. Relatos de quienes se quedan. Buenos Aires: Sebastián Puente.
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.
García Martín, J. et al. (2023) https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.13091
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.
Latour, Bruno. (2013). Investigación sobre los modos de existencia: una antropología de los modernos. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
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.
Souriau, Étienne. (2017). Los diferentes modos de existencia. Buenos Aires: Cactus.
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.
Specific (digital) ad hoc bibliography will be provided to develop the course work, once the Laboratories have been participated in and the topic chosen.
Software
There is no specific one.