In its first edition, Religion and the Domestication of Dissent
focused on the representations of Islam that circulated in the wake of
the 9/11 attacks—representations that scholars, pundits, and
politicians alike used either to essentialize and demonize it or,
instead, to isolate specific aspects as apolitical and thus tolerable
faith. This little book’s larger thesis therefore argued for how the
classifications that we routinely use to identify and thereby
negotiate our social worlds—notably such categories as
“religion” or “faith”—are explicitly political. This new
edition, which updates the first and adds a new closing chapter,
continues to be relevant today—a time when assertions concerning
supposedly authentic and homogenous identities (whether shared by
“us” or “them”) continue to animate a variety of public
debates where the stakes remain high. Thinking back on how Islam was
often portrayed in scholarship and popular media in western Europe and
North America offers lessons for how debates today unfold on such
topics as Christian nationalism—a designation now prominent among
pundits intent on identifying the proper and improper ways in which
religion intersects with modern political life. But it is this very
distinction (between religion and politics) that ought to be
attracting our attention, if we are interested not in which way of
being religious is right or reasonable but, instead, in determining
why some social groups are known as religious in the first place.
Seeing the latter question as linked to studying how socially
formative categories function in liberal democracies, Religion and the
Domestication of Dissent offers an anthropology of the present, when
the longstanding mechanisms of liberal governance seem to be under
threat.
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Or, How to Live in a Less Than Perfect Nation
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781040383322
Publisert
2025
Utgave
2. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Routledge
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter