Control, Coercion, and Constraint: The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency

Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2025

Control, Coercion, and Constraint

The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency

Edited by: Wolfram Kinzig and Barbara Loose

Volume 14 in the series Dependency and Slavery Studies

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111380575

About this book

Open Access

This volume is based on a lecture series that was held during the academic year 2021–2022 at the University of Bonn. Its contributors explore the role of religion in overcoming and creating structures of dependency from different disciplines and academic backgrounds.

The question of the role of religion in justifying, perpetuating, modifying, and abolishing slavery and other forms of strong asymmetrical dependency is still a much-debated topic within historical and social sciences. The equality of all human beings before God, gods, or the divine is deeply rooted in religious thought. Conversion to one or another religion has, therefore, often led to critique, transformation, and even abolition of existing social structures, institutions, and their corresponding dependencies.

Yet religious discourse has also been used to justify the subjection of individuals and whole peoples. In addition, throughout history, religious institutions themselves have often mirrored the social hierarchies and inequalities of the surrounding societies. Concomitantly, practitioners of these religious traditions have created systems of dependency within their own institutional, social, legal, and spiritual structures. This volume makes clear that not even the metaphysical world is free of dependencies: influential strands of almost all major religious traditions envisage hierarchies of gods, angels, demons, and other metaphysical beings.

Author / Editor information

Wolfram Kinzig and Barbara Loose, University of Bonn, Germany.

Topics

Frontmatter Open Access Download PDF	I
Acknowledgements Open Access Download PDF	V
Contents Open Access Download PDF	VII
Introduction Wolfram Kinzig and Barbara Loose Open Access Download PDF	1
God, Satan, and Humankind: Liberation from and Dependency on Supernatural Forces
Freedom and Dependency in Ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East Jan Dietrich Open Access Download PDF	11
The Semantics of Dependency in the Book of Isaiah and Beyond Ulrich Berges Open Access Download PDF	27
‘I Abjure Satan, his Pomp, and his Service’: Exchanging Religious Dependencies in the Early Church Wolfram Kinzig Open Access Download PDF	45
Interactions between Religion and Politics
Can the Subaltern . . . Write? Rediscovering the “He”-tribe from Serabit el Khadim and the Invention of Alphabetic Writing 4000 years ago Ludwig David Morenz Open Access Download PDF	67
Creating Dependency by Means of its Overcoming: A Case Study from the Rise of Tibetan Buddhism Lewis Doney Open Access Download PDF	89
‘There is a Great Difference between Christianity and Religion at the South’: References to Religion in Harriet Jacobs’s Slave Narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) Marion Gymnich Open Access Download PDF	109
Relics as Resource: Dependency from Holy Remains Sabine Feist Open Access Download PDF	127
Vīraśaiva and Jaina Rivalries in Medieval South India: Creating and Overcoming Structures of Dependency Julia A. B. Hegewald Open Access Download PDF	155
Religion and Gender Dependency
Sisters and Equals? Slavery and Hierarchies in Early Monastic Communities for Women Maria Munkholt Christensen Open Access Download PDF	181
Beyond Subordination versus Emancipation: Caribbean Godna (Tattoos) as Means of Recreating Social Relations and Affective Bonds Sinah Theres Kloß Open Access Download PDF	205
Religion and the Dialectic of Overcoming and Creating Dependency
Serving God: Structures of Dependency in the Ecclesiastical Realm Julia Winnebeck Open Access Download PDF	227
The Impact of Faith: Bartolomé de Las Casas’ Cultural Turn in his Interpretation of Aristotle as a Resource for Overcoming Slavery in the West Indies Michael Schulz Open Access Download PDF	249
Dominium in se ipsum in Antique and Medieval Discourses on Liberty Martin Schermaier Open Access Download PDF	265
William Wilberforce and the Ambiguities of Christian Antislavery John Coffey Open Access Download PDF	297
Index of Names Open Access Download PDF	321

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter
Audience: Theologians, historians, scholars in gender studies and slavery studies
Pages
- Front matter: 8
- Main content: 333
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 32
- Coloured Illustrations: 10
Keywords: Slavery; religion; persecution; emancipation

eBook

Published: December 30, 2024
ISBN: 9783111380575

Hardcover

Published: December 30, 2024
ISBN: 9783111380438

Control, Coercion, and Constraint

The Role of Religion in Overcoming and Creating Structures of Dependency

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