Making Religion. Theory and Practice in The Dis...

Making Religion
Supplements to Method & Theory

in the Study of Religion
Aaron W. Hughes (University of Rochester)

Russell McCutcheon (University of Alabama)
Kocku von Stuckrad (University of Groningen)
VOLUME 4
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/smtr

Making Religion
Theory and Practice in the Discursive Study of Religion
Edited by
Frans Wijsen
Kocku von Stuckrad
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Cover illustration: Molten Gold being poured into statue moulds to make religious imagery, in this case
Buddha statues. ©joloei, iStock/Getty Images.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wijsen, Frans Jozef Servaas, 1956- editor. | von Stuckrad, Kocku
editor.
Title: Making religion : theory and practice in the discursive study of
religion / edited by Frans Wijsen and Kocku von Stuckrad.
Description: Boston : Brill, 2016. | Series: Supplements to method & theory
in the study of religion, ISSN 2214-3270 ; 4 | Includes bibliographical
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Contents
List of Contributors vii
Introduction
Kocku von Stuckrad and Frans Wijsen
PART 1
Theoretical Reflections
1 Theory and Method in Critical Discursive Study of Religion: An

Outline 15
Titus Hjelm
2 No Danger! The Current Re-evaluation of Religion and Luhmann’s

Concept of Risk 35
Stephanie Garling
3 The Matter of Meaning and the Meaning of Matter: Explorations for

the Material and Discursive Study of Religion 51
George Ioannides
4 Slippery and Saucy Discourse: Grappling with the Intersection of

‘Alternate Epistemologies’ and Discourse Analysis 74
Jay Johnston
5 Distinctions of Religion: The Search for Equivalents of ‘Religion’ and

the Challenge of Theorizing a ‘Global Discourse of Religion’ 97
Adrian Hermann
6 Discourse on ‘Religion’ in Organizing Social Practices: Theoretical and

Practical Considerations 125
Teemu Taira
7 Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life: Modes of Observation 147

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer, Leif Hagen Seibert, Adrián Tovar Simoncic
and Jens Köhrsen
vi Contents
PART 2
Contexts and Cases
8 Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life: Tools of Observation 175

and Jens Köhrsen
9 Religion and Science in Transformation: On Discourse Communities,

the Double-Bind of Discourse Research, and Theoretical
Controversies 203
Kocku von Stuckrad
10 Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? Religious Identity in the Dutch

Integration Discourse 225
Frans Wijsen
11 Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse in the Nordic Folk

Church Context 239
Marcus Moberg
12 Critical Reflections on the Religious-Secular Dichotomy in

Japan 260
Mitsutoshi Horii
13 Whose Religion, What Freedom? Discursive Constructions of Religion

in the Work of un Special Rapporteurs on the Freedom of Religion or
Belief 287
Helge Årsheim
PART 3
Response
14 The Complex Discursivity of Religion 319

Reiner Keller
Index 329
List of Contributors
Helge Årsheim
University of Oslo
Stephanie Garling
German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Adrian Hermann
University of Hamburg
Titus Hjelm
University College London
Mitsutoshi Horii
Shumei University, Japan
George Ioannides
University of Sydney
Jay Johnston
University of Sydney
Reiner Keller
University of Augsburg
Jens Köhrsen
Bielefeld University
Marcus Moberg
Abo Akademi University
Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer

Leif Hagen Seibert

Adrián Tovar Simoncic

viii List of Contributors
Kocku von Stuckrad

University of Groningen
Teemu Taira
University of Helsinki
Frans Wijsen
Radboud University Nijmegen
Introduction
Kocku von Stuckrad and Frans Wijsen
Discursive approaches to the study of religion have gained momentum in

recent years. Closely linked to developments in linguistics, historiography,
and sociology, discourse research has slowly but steadily become an
accepted way of addressing theoretical and methodological issues in the
study of religion. It is time to take stock of the state of the art in the discur-
sive study of religion, to identify its strengths and weaknesses, and to
explore new directions for future research—hence this book. All of the
authors included in Making Religion have contributed to the emergence of
the field of discourse research in the study of religion from their respective
points of view. They have discussed these themes in various contexts, espe-
cially at the 2010 iahr Conference in Toronto, and most recently at the
2014 Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Religions
in Groningen. Many of the chapters in the present volume emerged from
that conference.
Although recognized today by many scholars as a legitimate approach to the
study of religion, discourse research needs to continue to elaborate on the impli-
cations of its theoretical framework and engage in further discussions with other
approaches to the study of religion. Additionally, the study of religious discourse
needs to open up even more to ongoing discussions in discourse research more
broadly, particularly in sociology, historiography, and anthropology.
Some of the challenges related to discursive approaches to the study of reli-
gion stem from the diverse—and sometimes vague—definitions of the concept
itself. The term ‘discourse’ has a long history of ever-changing meanings. In
French and English usage in the sixteenth century, the term indicated units of
text involving reasoned argumentation, something we would today call an ‘essay’.
A good example of this usage is René Descartes’ 1637 Discours de la méthode
(“Discourse on Method”). When we talk of ‘discourse’ today, however, the con-
cept is inseparably bound to the usage established by French structuralism,
in particular Michel Foucault (1926–1984), in the second half of the twentieth
century. Another major contribution to contemporary discourse research
came from linguistic analysis, in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin (1895–1975)
among others, which was interested in the intertextual dimensions of texts, their
invisible or implicit conversations with other texts and connotations, and the
embedding of texts in a larger social structure. These approaches argue that
texts and concepts gain their meaning only in reference and relation to other
texts as well as to social practices and rules. In the light of such an understanding,
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_002

2 von Stuckrad
discourse research explores and analyzes the rules and dynamics of attributing
meaning to texts and concepts and of establishing shared knowledge (explicit
or tacit) in a discourse community; it also addresses the strategies and pro-
cesses of legitimization, stabilization, and social organization of meaning and
knowledge.
Within the larger framework of discourse research, many forms of discourse
analysis are possible (see Maingueneau 1991: 15, who distinguishes seven in the
French academic discussion; see also Bublitz 2003; Mills 2004: 1–25). Different
forms of discourse analysis may need to apply different methods, but what
they have in common is the fact that ‘doing’ a discourse analysis is always an
attribution of meaning that is itself part of the discourse (Wrana 2014; see also
Moberg 2013: 12, referring to Taylor 2001: 39). In other words, analyzing dis-
course is itself a discursive practice that needs to be reflected upon from a
meta-discursive perspective (see von Stuckrad’s notion of the ‘double-bind’ of
discourse research in Chapter 9 of the present volume).
In the study of religion, the first conceptualizations of discursive approaches
date back to the 1980s (Kippenberg 1983; Lincoln 1989; see also Kippenberg
1992; Lincoln 2005 [1996]), but for a long time these suggestions were not
picked up in a more general way as the foundation of a serious referential
framework for a (self-)critical study of religion. The academic study of religion
has only sporadically taken account of the rich discussion in neighboring dis-
ciplines (sociology and historiography in particular) regarding the usefulness
of discursive analyses. However, more recent publications indicate that there
is a growing interest in the application of discourse analysis to the study of
religion (Heather 2000; Brown 2009; Hjelm 2011; Wijsen 2013a, 2013b; Moberg
2013; von Stuckrad 2013, 2014; Neubert 2014). As a discipline concerned with
diachronic and synchronic, historical and comparative approaches to the topic
of ‘religion’, the meaning of which changes significantly in different periods
and contexts, this book shows that the study of religion can profit greatly from
contributions to discourse theory, ranging from critical discourse analysis
(cda), to HabitusAnalysis (see Heinrich W. Schäfer et al. in Chapters 7 and 8 of
this volume), to what Reiner Keller has called the sociology of knowledge
approach to discourse (skad; see Keller 2011).
Making Religion: Overview of the Volume
The chapters in the present volume reflect the lively, ongoing debate about the
various forms of discourse analysis and their implications for the study of
Introduction 3
r eligion. All of the authors agree that religion is not something that is simply
found ‘out there’; rather, ‘religion’ is something that is ‘created’ through cultural
and communicational processes. Sharing a broad constructionist background,
the authors also agree that it is the task of the academic study of religion to
address the processes that ‘make’ religion. The authors differ when it comes to
concrete methodological considerations and to the ethical and political impli-
cations of discursive approaches to religion. The editors are convinced that
engagement with and discussion of various positions in the field, as reflected
in the chapters of Making Religion, provide an excellent starting point for fur-
ther research as well as the further consolidation of discourse analysis in the
study of religion.
The book revolves around a consistent theoretical axis, which provides the
backbone of the volume and connects the contributions to particular themes
and also to each other. The goal is to explore extant scholarship in this field; to
analyze, apply, determine the utility of, and improve these contributions; and
to propose alternatives. Each chapter offers one or more case studies that illus-
trate and test a theoretical grid. The end result is an exploration of how dis-
course analysis works in practice in the study of religion. The chapters are
organized in two parts, one focusing on “Theoretical Reflections” and the other
on “Contexts and Cases.”
The volume opens with Titus Hjelm’s chapter on “Theory and Method in
Critical Discursive Study of Religion: An Outline.” Hjelm points out that
although discourse theory and discourse analysis have recently emerged as
noteworthy approaches in the study of religion, little of this discursive research
is critical in the Marxist sense of the word. This kind of critical research takes
the alienating power of religion seriously and pays close attention to religion’s
contribution to both social and religious inequality. One tool for attending to
such questions of inequality is the critique of ideology developed in the
Marxist tradition. This chapter develops a contemporary approach to the cri-
tique of ideology by drawing from critical discourse analysis (cda). Hjelm
argues that contemporary (discursive) critique of ideology is crucial for
‘unmasking’ power relations in complex societies and is a key component in
the critical study of religion.
In her chapter, “No Danger! The Current Re-evaluation of Religion and
Luhmann’s Concept of Risk,” Stephanie Garling adds another dimension to
the theoretical discussion. She starts with the observation that religion has
widely (re-)entered political communication, no longer dominantly, as a
threat to be avoided, but rather as a useful resource. The aim of the chapter
is to investigate how Niklas Luhmann’s distinction between ‘danger’ and
4 von Stuckrad
‘risk’ can be used to make this current re-evaluation of religion visible. Based
on Luhmann’s thinking, Garling demonstrates the discursive practices and
strategies that make religion appear as a risk rather than a danger. It becomes
clear that the infusion of religion into political communication has a stabi-
lizing impact on the political system, and the chapter further examines the
ways in which this process functions. These findings demonstrate the useful-
ness of Luhmann’s theoretical insights for the study of religion, as they offer
an opportunity to look at the (often heated) public debate on religion from a
different angle.
In “The Matter of Meaning and the Meaning of Matter: Explorations for the
Material and Discursive Study of Religion,” George Ioannides investigates
the fraught yet productive relationship between discourse and materiality in
the convergence of recent discursive and material approaches to theory and
method in the study of religion. This chapter responds both to Titus Hjelm’s
characterization of critical discourse analysis as concerned with a social
constructionism that simultaneously acknowledges “that there is a reality—
physical and social—outside of discourse” (2011: 140) and to Kocku von
Stuckrad’s formulation of a de-ontologized yet ‘dispositive’ discursive analysis
that “moves beyond the analysis of discursive practices to include non-
discursive practices and materializations” (2013: 15) by proposing a ‘new mate-
rialist’ theoretical approach to the (discursive) study of religion. In attempting
to actualize a contemporary (re-)turn toward engaging the ‘material’ in its
heterogeneous agencies and performative vitalities, new materialist theory col-
lapses essentialist and constructionist understandings of society and thus pres-
ents the study of religion with an alternative, more integrated approach for
thinking through the relations and forms of discursive imagination and mate-
rialization that structure peoples’ relations to certain practices and experiences
that come to be lived as ‘religious’. In so doing, this chapter seeks a more ade-
quate understanding of the complex and dynamic interplay of both matter and
meaning in the wider theoretical and methodological study of religion.
Closely related to Ioannides’ considerations, Jay Johnston explores “Slippery
and Saucy Discourse: Grappling with the Intersection of ‘Alternate Epistemo
logies’ and Discourse Analysis.” For some, the task of discourse analysis has
been understood as a ‘way’ to critically locate and bring to conscious reflection
the specific biases, assumptions, socio-cultural foundations and frameworks
of knowledge deemed “common” (Hjelm 2011: 142) or “implicit” (von Stuckrad
2013: 10); in short, to challenge and reflect upon beliefs, practices, and forms of
subjectivity deemed ‘natural’ by the dominant culture. Attendant to this is the
recognition that ‘deviant’ or alternative positions are similarly constructed;
Introduction 5
thus, the chapter’s focus is on the examination of what discourse analysis

offers the critical study of ‘uncommon’ or ‘alternate’ epistemologies as they are
invoked, utilized, and constructed in magical practice. Two examples are dis-
cussed via the ‘reading’ of ritual texts: one from Egypt in Late Antiquity, and
the other from a contemporary context of self-directed spiritual practice.
Central to this analysis is an examination of perception (and its cultivation). In
order to admit such ‘other’ knowledges to greater scholarly consideration, one
is not required to throw out critical analysis. Indeed, many of the concepts
utilized by cultural theorists in order to ‘signal’ that which elides the ‘text’ or
enables intersubjectivity (for example, ‘affect’) are just such modes of engage-
ment. Johnston argues that scholars of religion need to critically investigate
the tropes and frameworks used to construct epistemological identities and
knowledges of all kinds. However, scholars also need a framework of analysis
through which the lived, messy intersections of various epistemological
resources can be more consciously considered. Through the proposition and
exploration of the concepts of ‘simultaneity’ and ‘suspension’, her chapter
interrogates the boundaries placed between essentialist and constructivist
concepts of knowledge and subjectivity and refigures the theory–practice
binary. Perception and ‘other’ modes of knowing are no less embedded in cul-
tural paradigms of possibility and normativity than any other type of embod-
ied, discursive, linguistic practice, and as such, we have the same ethical
imperative to trouble our assumptions, expectations, and representations of
such encounters.
In his chapter, “Distinctions of Religion: The Search for Equivalents of
‘Religion’ and the Challenge of Theorizing a ‘Global Discourse of Religion’,”
Adrian Hermann opens up another perspective. In the context of a discourse-
theoretical perspective on ‘religion’, it is often said that a ‘global discourse on
religion’ has emerged over the course of the last few centuries. At the same
time, the question of whether or not concepts similar to ‘religion’ can be found
in non-Western contexts has been the subject of much academic controversy
over the past two decades. This chapter analyzes current debates in the discur-
sive study of religion as well as recent attempts at identifying equivalents to
‘religion’ in non-Western languages and cultures in order to identify the chal-
lenges in conceptualizing a genealogy of ‘religion’ as a global discourse. Two
central questions are discussed: How can ‘religion’ as a global discourse be
conceptualized as a unity? How can we arrive at a consistent theoretical
description of ‘religion’ as a global discourse across many different languages
and cultures? Going back to Michel Foucault’s understanding of a discourse’s
“rules of formation,” Hermann suggests that we can identify three ‘distinctions
6 von Stuckrad
of religion’ that allow us to describe the global discourse on ‘religion’ as a uni-

tary formation. Drawing on the work of Lydia He Liu, Hermann goes on to
argue that the discursive study of religion has to be re-conceptualized as the
historical study of “translingual practice,” the historical process of establishing
hypothetical equivalences between languages.
Teemu Taira continues the theoretical discussion with this chapter on “Dis
course on ‘Religion’ in Organizing Social Practices: Theoretical and Practical
Considerations.” The historical construction of the category of ‘religion’ has
become a relatively popular object of study in the last twenty years. Some
scholars have demonstrated that the modern discourse on ‘religion’ has been
tied to Western colonialism, while others have put more emphasis on the for-
mation of modern ‘secular’ nation-states. This approach does not define reli-
gion or religious discourse, but rather studies the uses of ‘religion’ and how the
boundaries of discourse are drawn. Hence, it differs from what could be called
the study of ‘religious discourse’ (e.g., Bruce Lincoln). Both approaches are
interested in the ways in which discourses enable human action, but the latter
starts by defining what counts as ‘religious discourse’. The chapter compares
the two approaches, connects them to standard theoretical and methodologi-
cal debates on discourse analysis, and, finally, puts emphasis on the ways in
which the category of ‘religion’ is used in organizing social practices in con-
temporary societies. By focusing on two empirical examples—statements
about the religiosity of Confucianism in China and Jediism in Britain—Taira
argues that we are witnessing a reflexive moment in the discourse on ‘religion’
and that ‘religion’ is a multifunctional category. In other words, groups and
institutions are forced to rethink what counts as religion or what is permitted
under the label of religion. This facilitates possibilities for openly strategic uses
in claiming to have a religion, and these uses have different functions for differ-
ent actors. Therefore, historical studies of discourse on ‘religion’ need to be
supplemented by examinations of recent instances where people and institu-
tions classify groups and practices as ‘religious’ or deny the religiosity of a
group or practice.
The first part of the volume concludes with the contribution of a research
group from Bielefeld University. Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer, Leif Hagen Seibert,
Adrián Tovar Simoncic, and Jens Köhrsen apply a praxeological approach to
the study of religion, which combines theoretical, methodological, and empir-
ical perspectives. Consequently, the chapter “Towards a Praxeology of Religious
Life” is divided into two closely related parts—one theoretical (“Modes of
Observation”) and the other empirical (“Tools of Observation”). Taken together,
the contribution presents a theoretical and methodological research program
on religious praxis that has been developed over the last three decades and is
Introduction 7
based on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. The authors focus on the relations
between religious beliefs, social action, and social structures. Methodologically,
this approach pivots around what the authors call HabitusAnalysis—a mixed
qualitative and quantitative approach to religious praxis that consists of three
interdependent models: the dispositions of the practical sense of religious
actors, the religious field, and the social space of religious styles. Religious
praxis can thus be reconstructed and understood by relating these different
aspects to one another via a triangulation of model-specific research results.
The first of the two chapters briefly describes the concept of religion and
comments on the concept of praxis, interpreted with special attention to
religious dispositions. Then the three analytical models are outlined one by
one, exemplified by a study of Guatemalan Pentecostals. Finally, the authors
triangulate the models and draw conclusions. In accordance with Bourdieu,
discourse is described as one form of social praxis among others.
In his chapter, “Religion and Science in Transformation: On Discourse Com
munities, the Double-Bind of Discourse Research, and Theoretical Controver
sies,” Kocku von Stuckrad analyzes the entanglements of discourses on religion
and science. At the end of the nineteenth century, the institutionalization of
academic disciplines—such as anthropology, Indology, comparative religion,
psychology, and also the newly established natural sciences—led to a signifi-
cant discursive transformation. Around 1900, the discourse on ‘religion’ was
closely entangled with discourses on ‘nature’, ‘monism’, ‘soul’, and ‘vitalism’.
Academics from the humanities and the natural sciences formed a discourse
community with readers, practitioners, and lay-authors; this community att
ributed new meanings to ‘religion’ as a category that was detached from its
entanglement with Christian theological discourse. The impact of this discur-
sive re-entanglement on the history of religion in Europe and North America
has been enormous, ranging from so-called ‘New Age religion’ to nature-based
spiritualities and holistic metaphysics. The chapter traces the genealogy of
some of these concepts and argues that a discourse-historical analysis can lead
to a better understanding of the complex relationship between secular science
and religion. Von Stuckrad then uses this case study as the basis for a discus-
sion of a number of theoretical controversies in the discursive study of religion
and explores what he calls the ‘double-bind’ of discourse research.
In “Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? Religious Identity in the Dutch
Integration Discourse,” Frans Wijsen addresses debates in contemporary Dutch
society, where the return of religion to the public arena, and particularly
the presence of Muslim immigrants, are sensitive issues. In addressing these
issues, he explores two questions: First, what is the relation between the reli-
gious (read Muslim) identity discourses of non-Western immigrants and the
8 von Stuckrad
i ntegration discourses of Dutch citizens? Second, what is the relation between

these contemporary discourses and colonial discourses, particularly in the Dutch
East Indies? These relations can be understood in terms of inter-discursivity
or orders of discourses. This chapter uses data generated through interviews
with Indonesian Muslims in The Hague. Wijsen analyzes these interviews from
the perspective of the Dialogical Self Theory (dst) and interprets them using
critical discourse analysis (cda). He contends that bringing together both bod-
ies of knowledge (dst and cda) and exploring some of the similarities in their
key concepts enriches both of these approaches and enhances immigration
and integration studies. The chapter has three parts. The first part analyzes the
contemporary discourse about the return of religion to the public domain in
the Netherlands, particularly perceptions of Islam as an ignorant and danger-
ous religion. The second part analyzes the ways in which Dutch colonial
administrators and missionaries perceived Islam in the Dutch East Indies,
their construction of religion (agama), and its separation from traditional law
(adat). The third part analyzes how Indonesian immigrants in The Hague posi-
tion and identify themselves and conceive of their religious identity in relation
to their integration into modern Dutch society.
The next chapter, “Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse in the
Nordic Folk Church Context,” addresses the dominance of the market as a
metaphor and a model for social and cultural organization. Marcus Moberg
shows that this metaphor has gained increasing discursive momentum
across a range of social and cultural fields in recent decades. In order to gain
an adequate understanding of the impact of market-related discourses—
conceptualized as marketization discourses—on traditional and long-
established religious institutions in particular social, cultural, and national
and regional contexts, it becomes necessary to empirically investigate how
the present-day self-understanding, agency, professional ethos, and organi-
zational transformation of such religious institutions relates to the degree to
which they have adopted and internalized marketization discourses and
adapted and implemented the values and demands that such discourse pro-
motes in actual practice. The chapter focuses on these developments in the
context of the Nordic Lutheran folk churches. Utilizing Fairclough’s three-
dimensional critical discourse analysis, Moberg outlines some key ways in
which a discourse-analytic perspective can be of value in empirically fur-
thering our understanding of how broader social and cultural processes of
discursive change translate into actual institutional religious change.
Mitsutoshi Horii contributes to the discussion with an analysis of Japanese
discourses on religion and the secular. His chapter, “Critical Reflections on
the Religious-Secular Dichotomy in Japan,” addresses the fact that the
Introduction 9
Japanese concept of ‘religion’ (shūkyō), as a generic category, was invented in

the nineteenth century. The term was a key constituent element in the tech-
nology of modern Japanese statecraft. In the light of this scrutiny, Horii
reviews how the generic term ‘religion’ was imported to and appropriated as
shūkyō in Japan in the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century.
This is followed by the examination of the ways in which the concept was
reformulated after the Second World War under the influence of American-
style liberal democratic values. To the present day, the boundary between
religion (shūkyō) and the non-religious secular is ambiguous and often con-
tentious. Importantly, this exploration leaves us with the under-researched
area of shūkyō in the colloquial discourse. The chapter suggests, via a con-
structive approach to recent academic discourse, that what can be meaning-
fully studied is the process by which the conceptual category of ‘religion’ is
constructed into a specific configuration as well as the norms and impera-
tives which govern this process.
In “Whose Religion, What Freedom? Discursive Constructions of Religion in
the Work of un Special Rapporteurs on the Freedom of Religion or Belief,”
Helge Årsheim addresses the re-emergence and increased assertiveness of reli-
gion as a significant factor in international affairs in the decades since the end
of the Cold War. This dynamic has created renewed political, legal, and social
interest in religious organizations, their doctrines, and the behavior of their
adherents. Such a ‘comeback’ of religion—as well as its analysis in academic
disciplines, such as law and political science—constitutes a new and unfamil-
iar discursive field (episteme) for disciplines that have traditionally engaged
themselves extensively with religion, such as theology, religious studies,
anthropology, and sociology. This chapter has two aims: First, it maps these
new discursive surroundings, presenting key insights in the new literature on
religion from unfamiliar disciplines, with a particular emphasis on the rise of
the interdisciplinary, thematic subfield of ‘Law and Religion’. Second, Årsheim
translates these insights into a set of research questions that guide a close, tex-
tual analysis of the work of four consecutive special rapporteurs on the free-
dom of religion or belief, appointed by the un Human Rights Commission and
the un Human Rights Council from the beginning of the mandate in 1986 up
to the present. Special rapporteurs are key actors in the international human
rights monitoring system and regularly issue observations and recommenda-
tions to states regarding the role and status of religion in society. Starting well
ahead of the re-emergence of religion on the world stage, the collective output
of the special rapporteurs offers a unique opportunity to trace the shifting dis-
cursive boundaries of religion and assess the consequences of these shifts. In
conclusion, Årsheim categorizes the different discursive strategies employed
10 von Stuckrad
by each special rapporteur and proposes increased involvement between

future mandate-holders and the scholarly community.
The volume concludes with Reiner Keller’s response, addressing the main
themes, challenges, and future perspectives of the field of discursive study of
religion.
The editors would like to thank all of the authors for their effort and enthu-
siasm, which created a lively conversation and made this volume possible. We
also thank Reiner Keller for his willingness to contribute to the ongoing discus-
sion, as well as Alissa Jones Nelson, who did a fantastic job in supervising the
publication project and copy-editing the volume.
In conclusion, we hope that this volume will provide an overview of current
debates in the field, will extend and improve upon theories and methodolo-
gies, and will contribute to the discipline more broadly by flagging the impor-
tance of this emerging field and outlining possibilities for further research and
discussion on both theoretical and practical levels.
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der Religionswissenschaft, edited by Burkhard Gladigow and Hans G. Kippenberg,
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(1996): 225–227.)
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l’archive. Paris: Hachette.
Mills, Sara. 2004. Discourse. 2nd updated edition. London: Routledge.
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in the Study of Religion: Moving from Meta-theoretical Reflection to Implementation
in Practice.” Religion 43: 4–25.
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forschung: Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch, 2 vols., edited by Johannes Angermuller,
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Discourse as Data: A Guide for Analysis, edited by Margaret Wetherell, Stephanie
Taylor, and Simeon T. Yates, 5–48. London: Sage.
von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2013. “Discursive Study of Religion: Approaches, Definitions,
Implications.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 25: 5–25.
von Stuckrad, Kocku. 2014. The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of
Discursive Change, 1800–2000. Boston and Berlin: De Gruyter.
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Muslim–Christian Relations. Religions and Discourse, vol. 55. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Wijsen, Frans. 2013b. “Editorial: Discourse Analysis in Religious Studies.” Religion
43: 1–3.
Wrana, Daniel. 2014. “Zum Analysieren als diskursive Praxis.” In Diskursforschung: Ein
interdisziplinäres Handbuch, 2 vols., edited by Johannes Angermuller, Martin Nonhoff,
Eva Herschinger, Felicitas Macgilchrist, Martin Reisigl, Juliette Wedl, Daniel Wrana,
and Alexander Ziem, vol. 1: 635–644. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Part 1
Theoretical Reflections
∵
chapter 1
Theory and Method in Critical Discursive

Study of Religion: An Outline1
Titus Hjelm
I have been pleased to observe the emergence of what is now commonly called
‘discursive study of religion’ (von Stuckrad 2003; 2010; 2013) in recent years.
Journal articles, special issues, and broad interest in discursive approaches evi-
dent in academic conferences all attest to this emergence. I am personally
pleased because discourse analysis has been my theoretical/methodological
‘home’ since my ma dissertation in the late 1990s. Indeed, the Finnish religious
studies scene is a curious example of a national academic tradition in which
discourse theory, discourse analysis, and rhetorical analysis had already
become ‘mainstream’ in the early 2000s (e.g., Sakaranaho 1998; Hjelm 2000). It
is perhaps no surprise, then, that three of the four authors in the recent special
issue of Religion titled “Discourse Analysis in Religious Studies” were Finns
(Moberg 2013; Taira 2013; Granholm 2013).
Personal history and national quirks aside, I am also pleased by the fact
that—although thinking about religion through discourse, or as discourse, is
of course not an entirely novel thing—the focus is shifting from metatheo-
retical discussions about religious studies to actual empirical analyses of
what passes for religion in societies (Moberg 2013). These range from histori-
cal (e.g., von Stuckrad 2014) to contemporary (e.g., Hjelm 2014a) and cover a
variety of geographical areas (e.g., Wijsen 2013). The discursive study of reli-
gion, if not yet entirely established and still seeking its boundaries, is at least
off to a good start.
I am less pleased about what I see as a serious lacuna in both the program-
matic statements about the discursive study of religion and the emerging
corpus of empirical studies: an insufficient engagement with questions of
domination, ideology, and hegemony. For example, although von Stuckrad
(2013) pays lip service to Foucault (problematically identifying him with “a
Marxist line of interpretation”), his outline for a discursive study of religion is
devoid of questions of power (but see von Stuckrad in chapter nine of this
1 Parts of an earlier article published in Critical Sociology (Hjelm 2014c) appear in this chapter
in revised form and are used with the kind permission of Sage.

16 Hjelm
volume for a more nuanced discussion of this theme). On the other hand, per-
haps it is exactly this theoretical heritage that impedes a properly critical view
of discourse (Hjelm 2104b: 93–99). Although Foucault’s influence on discourse
theory cannot be underestimated, and his work has influenced some relevant
discussions about discourse and power in religious studies (Taira 2013), I share
Fairclough’s (1992) concern about ‘genealogical’ approaches that seem to
assume that the historical formation of discourses is somehow a smooth,
unproblematic process. The point of critical discourse analysis (cda)—
especially as evident in the (early) work of Norman Fairclough—is to show
that whatever passes for knowledge in society (Berger and Luckmann 1967)
and the habitual actions that develop from discursive sources (prohibitions,
prompts, etc.) are always outcomes of a (discursive) struggle. This is the differ-
ence between what could be referred to as ‘analytical’ approaches (represented
by von Stuckrad, for example) and critical Marxist-inspired approaches (such
as the one outlined here). Thanks to the emerging adaptation of cda, terms
like ‘power’ and ‘ideology’ are sometimes employed in the discursive study of
religion. The use of these terms, however, has been inconsistent at best.
Furthermore, defining Fairclough’s approach as ‘linguistic’ (which it partly is,
of course) has led to an unfortunate distinction between linguistic and ‘histori-
cal’ approaches (von Stuckrad 2013) seeing cda as a method rather than as
methodology, (i.e., comprising theoretical rethinking as well).
Hence, what I want to do in this chapter is to suggest cda as a framework for
critical discursive study of religion (henceforth cdsr). My aim is to demon-
strate that ‘linguistic’ cda is at least as saturated with theoretical rethinking as
other approaches to discourse analysis and is more than a method. I further
argue that a cda perspective has a lot to offer to the study of religion by
(a) sensitizing scholars to the significance of discourse in creating hegemonic
understandings of ‘religion’ in everyday (mediated) social interaction and
(b) by offering a framework through which to analyze the discursive construc-
tion, reproduction, and transformation of inequality in the field of religion.
Because of the scarcity of studies employing cda (for an excellent overview,
see Moberg 2013), my approach is suggestive rather than evaluative; that is, the
focus is on how cda could be used rather than how it has been used.
The chapter is divided into four main sections. First, I will briefly outline the
broader theoretical backdrop—in this case, Marxism—from which cdsr
draws. Second, I will discuss the concept of discourse and its different mean-
ings. Third, I will discuss what being ‘critical’ means in the context of discourse
analysis. Finally, I will construct a framework for doing practical cda.
Before proceeding, I want to emphasize that my intention is not to regulate
what ‘proper’ discursive study of religion should look like. In keeping with
Theory and Method in Critical Discursive Study of Religion 17
what I have written earlier regarding the use of discourse analysis in the study
of religion (Hjelm 2011b), every study has its own requirements and its own
methodological ‘fit’. I do think, for example, that you cannot talk about cda
without employing the concept of ideology in some form, but beyond that, the
following is really an outline, as the title of this chapter implies.
Eek! It’s a Marxist! Run!
I have a confession to make. Well, two, actually. First, I am a sociologist. That

means that I am not interested in religion or religions per se. Rather, I am inter-
ested in what people do and say to each other—particularly in what people do
when they say things to each other. From a discursive perspective, this should
not be very controversial. As von Stuckrad (2013) among others argues, what
passes for ‘religion’ is not special, but is rather a construction similar to whatever
passes for ‘law’, ‘science’, and ‘economy’, for example. I wholeheartedly agree.
Second—and this is where things get trickier—I have in recent years
increasingly identified with the Marxist tradition in social science. Although
much diminished since its heyday in the 1960s and 70s, the tradition is still
alive and well in sociology especially and is (possibly) even reviving in the face
of the global crisis of capitalism. Sociology of religion is different, however.
Most of the textbook wisdom trots out Marx’s 150-year-old critique of religion
as ‘the opium of the people’, reducing critique to an historical curiosity, whereas
‘living’ sociology of religion seems to descend almost exclusively from
Durkheim and Weber. Unfortunately, that attitude is also reflected in much
recent scholarship. When Cadge, Levitt, and Smilde (2011: 442), for example,
refer to the “excesses of old-fashioned Marxist portraits of religion as an opiate
of the masses,” they don’t seem to have analytical Marxism (or sociology of
religion) in mind. Yet, since Marx has been canonized as part of the ‘holy trin-
ity’ of sociology’s classics (together with Weber and Durkheim), sociologists of
religion tend to react to Marxist analyses with mild interest or indifference—
as I have argued elsewhere (2014c), if textbooks are the measure, no identifi-
able tradition of critical sociology of religion exists at the moment—but rarely
with fear.
Things are a bit different at, say, the annual meeting of the American
Academy of Religion. There, the mention of Marx—at least in my experience—
elicits a distinctive squirming reaction. In a context where religion is taken
seriously, Marx remains anti-religion. End of discussion (except at conference
drinks receptions, where the phrase “Oh, you’re the Marxist” is often a prelude
to nervous chats about anything but religion).
18 Hjelm
My point here is not to directly tackle Marxism’s (or Marxist sociology’s)

engagement—or lack thereof—with religion (see McLellan 1987; McKown
1975), even while I acknowledge that it is in this tradition that I think the discur-
sive study of religion can be enriched and made properly critical. Fortunately,
there are signs of this tradition re-emerging in various forms, both in the sociol-
ogy of religion (e.g., Goldstein 2006) and in religious studies (Martin 2014; Rey
2007; McCloud 2007). Thanks to these signs of life, perhaps one day it will be
unnecessary to explain why one would want to use a Marxist approach to reli-
gion, but as this day hasn’t quite yet arrived, I will briefly preface my outline of
cdsr with two crucial points that spring from Marxist thought.
First, as Marx put it in Capital: “Technology reveals the active relationship of
man to nature, the direct production process which sustains his life, and
thereby also lays bare his social life relationships and the mental conceptions
flowing from them. Every history, even of religion, that is abstracted from this
material basis is—uncritical” (quoted in Raines 2002: 198, my emphasis). As I
will discuss further below, this reminder of the material basis of social life is
particularly relevant in the context of discursive study of religion—not
because of the ‘misty realms’ of religion obscuring our view of the immanent
human world, but because of the excesses of discourse theory.
Postmodernism is dead, says realist social theorist Dave Elder-Vass (2012: 4).
Indeed, the wildest forms of postmodern discourse theory have quietly exited
the stage in the twenty-first century. Still, the idea that there is nothing outside
of discourse—what I call the “world in discourse” position (Hjelm 2014b:
90–93)—lingers. It lingers in some empirical research (most notably in conver-
sation analysis, although the impact of ca on the study of religion has been
minuscule; see Lehtinen 2011), but especially in images that people have of
discourse analysis. For example, the extreme relativism of Edwards et al.
(1995)—which von Stuckrad (2013) approvingly quotes—is easy to shrug off
when it is clear that no matter what kind and how much discourse they pro-
duce, Muslims rarely have a say in how their religion is constructed in Western
media. One’s social position (which is not reducible to discourse) matters, it
seems. In other words, representations alone do not change society, people do;
that is the whole point of understanding discourse as ‘language use’ in particu-
lar contexts (parole, as per de Saussure). But people and the contexts of their
actions are historical products. Going back to Marx (1852): “Men make their
own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under
self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given
and transmitted from the past.”
Second, in an argument that is as common as it is inane, Marxism as a
whole is dismissed because it ‘obviously didn’t work’. Without going into the
convoluted debate about what Marx ‘really’ said and his legacy in ‘actually
existing socialism’ (e.g., the ussr), I follow eminent left-wing historian Eric
Hobsbawm (2011: 15) in assessing the significance of Marx and Marxisms for the
twenty-first century: “We cannot foresee the solutions to the problems facing
the world in the twenty-first century, but if they are to have a chance of success
they must ask Marx’s questions, even if they do not wish to accept his various
disciples’ answers.” For the social scientist and scholar of religion, these are
questions about power, domination, ideology, and inequality. To give just one
example: Marx’s famous “opium of the people” phrase was not a philosophical
argument against religion and for atheism, but an analysis of the social effects
of religion. Religion is more than a numbing drug; it is “a force which legiti-
mates” the social order (Hamilton 2001: 93–94). Peter Berger agrees, despite his
animosity towards Marxism, in a passage that has clear Marxian overtones:
[R]eligion has been the historically most widespread and effective instru-
mentality of legitimation. All legitimation maintains socially defined
reality. Religion legitimates so effectively because it relates the precarious
reality constructions of empirical societies with ultimate reality. The
tenuous realities of the social world are grounded in the sacred realissi-
mum, which by definition is beyond the contingencies of human mean-
ings and human activity.
BERGER 1973: 41
Especially in Berger’s later work, legitimation is a matter of social cohesion

(Turner 2008: 496), but from a critical perspective, legitimation is a struggle for
hegemony. In this sense, religion—as expressed by Berger—is an example of
ideology or “meaning in the service of power,” as discussed below: Alternative
constructions of reality are suppressed by reference to an ultimate, unques-
tionable source—the sacred. The question for cdsr is: How are these legitima-
tions accomplished discursively? In other words, how is the religious alienation
described by Berger reproduced and/or challenged in discourse? In the follow-
ing, I explore ways of thinking about these questions.
Understanding Discourse
There are as many definitions of ‘discourse’ as there are of ‘religion’, ranging

from the historical ‘act of conversation’ to postmodern theorizations about
ontology. In Engler’s (2006) schema (which is echoed by von Stuckrad 2013),
the main distinction lies between cultural studies and linguistic approaches to
20 Hjelm
discourse: Cultural studies approaches focus on how “discourse shapes or consti-

tutes the subject, in opposition to the view that language is simply a tool used by
autonomous subjects” (2006: 517). Engler uses McCutcheon’s (2003) discussion
of “sui generis religion” as a prime example of a Foucault-inspired cultural stud-
ies approach in the study of religion. In turn, linguistic approaches—with con-
siderably less impact on the field—focus instead on empirical study of texts on
both micro and macro levels (Engler 2006).
The aim of cda is to bridge these two approaches. Norman Fairclough
(whom I will draw upon most in my own discussion) combines Foucault’s
ideas with what is referred to as ‘functional linguistics’, creating a powerful tool
for the close analysis of texts (Fairclough 1992). The theoretical underpinnings
and methodological implications of cda are crystallized in two properties that
discourse is said to have: it is both constitutive and functional.
Discourse is constitutive because it does not simply reflect or represent
things ‘out there’ but ‘constructs’ or ‘constitutes’ them (Fairclough 1992: 3).
According to Fairclough (1992), the three things that are constituted in dis-
course are (a) social identities or ‘subject positions’, (b) social relationships,
and (c) systems of knowledge and belief. These, of course, are continuously
overlapping, but the distinction provides a useful analytical focus. In the study
of religion, the ‘cult controversies’ provide a good example of the constitutive
nature of discourse: How can it be that the same religious beliefs and practices
are considered the way to salvation by some, while to others they are deviant,
harmful, and evil? The answer is in the different discourses that the adherents
and the anti-cult movements employ. It is not that either side is consciously
telling lies (although sometimes that happens as well), but rather that “while
people may tell the truth, and nothing but the truth, it is impossible for anyone
to tell the whole truth. Everyone (more or less consciously) selects what is to be
included or excluded from their picture of reality according to a number of
criteria—one criterion being what is relevant to their interests” (Barker 2011:
200, emphasis in original). Although not explicitly using a discourse analytical
framework, the sociology of new religious movements has been a forerunner
in analyzing religion (in this case ‘cults’) as a discursive construction (e.g.,
Beckford 1985; Richardson 1997).
Discourse has a second characteristic that is closely connected to Barker’s
observation about the interests of social actors. In addition to being constitu-
tive, discourse is also functional (Fairclough 1992; Potter and Wetherell 1987:
32–33). This should not be mistaken as a reference to functionalist theory and
its static view of society. Instead, discourse itself is seen as a form of social
practice, contributing both to the reproduction of society and to social change
(Fairclough 1992; Potter 1996: 105). Edwards and Potter (1992) talk about the
“action orientation” of discourse, that is, how things are done with discourse—
which is sometimes also referred to as the performativity of discourse. Again,
the discourse of the anti-cult movements is thick not only with constructions
of cults, but also with descriptions of the ways cult members can be ‘cured’ and
practical policy recommendations on how the influence of cults can be pre-
vented. This ‘cult discourse’ constructs cults as a social problem and also offers
practical avenues of action in dealing with the problem (see Hjelm 2011a).
Although the ideas of constitution and function are shared by most dis-
course analytical approaches, the epistemological and ontological background
assumptions and, consequently, the methodological and interpretive implica-
tions vary. A crude difference could be made between approaches that see
discourse as interacting with an extra-discursive social structure and those
that deny or at least are indifferent to any claims of ontological reality outside
of discourse. Although discourse analysis—and the underlying epistemology
of social constructionism more broadly—has often been identified solely with
the latter view, cda is materialist and sees discourse in dialectical interaction
with broader social formations that constrain discourse on the one hand but are
also changed by discourse on the other (Fairclough and Wodak 1997). Chouliaraki
and Fairclough (1999: 1) alternately call this approach (following Bourdieu)
“constructivist structuralism” or “structuralist constructivism.” Although it is
impossible to go into the details of the full (meta)theoretical discussion here,
the above point has important methodological implications: If—as the more
‘postmodern’ approaches claim—the social context of discourse is continually
constructed and thus cannot be independent of discourse itself, the focus is
usually on smaller units of analysis, such as sequences of talk (see Wooffitt
2006). However, if the context of discourse is seen as something independent—
and stable forms of discourse practice, such as genre, suggest that this is indeed
a useful view—the unit of analysis is often larger and contrasted with the
broader social and cultural framework (see Fairclough 1992; Silverman 2007).
Being Critical
As mentioned above, Foucault and functional linguistics are two important

sources of cda. The third is Marx, or rather ideas developed by prominent
Marxists such as Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser (although the latter fea-
tures less in Fairclough’s later work; Fairclough 1989; 1992; 2003). Drawing from
this critical tradition of social science, cda focuses on “the dynamics of power,
knowledge, and ideology that surround discursive processes” (Phillips and
Hardy 2002: 20). The key terms for cda are ideology and hegemony.
22 Hjelm
In everyday talk, ideology is often understood as something akin to a

worldview and has sometimes been explicitly contrasted with religion. John
B. Thompson summarizes this “grand narrative of cultural transformation”
that has its sources in Marx and Weber: “The decline of religion and magic
prepared the ground for the emergence of secular belief systems or ‘ideolo-
gies’, which serve to mobilise political action without reference to other-
worldly values or beings” (Thompson 1990: 77). While this sense of ‘ideology’
is rooted in the history of the concept, cda uses it in a different sense. The
critical conception of ideology can be concisely defined as “meaning in the
service of power” (Thompson 1990: 8; cf. Beckford 1983). Speaking in the plu-
ral, Fairclough defines ideologies as “constructions of reality (the physical
world, social relations, social identities), which are built into various dimen-
sions of the forms/meanings of discursive practices, and which contribute to
the p roduction, reproduction or transformation of relations of domination”
(Fairclough 1992: 87).
The contemporary discursive conception of ideology sees power as increas-
ingly exercised through the use of persuasive language instead of coercion.
When ‘proper’ ways of thinking about and doing things give a one-sided
account that ignores the variety of practices, discourse is said to function ideo-
logically (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 26). For example, when the charac-
teristics of a group of people are represented as derivable from their ethnic or
religious background (e.g., ‘Muslim terrorists’), the discourse ‘irons out’ the
variety of beliefs, practices, and ways of thinking in the group. Hegemony
(‘hegemonic discourse’) is the peak of ideology, the point at which all alterna-
tive constructions are suppressed in favor of one dominating view. Although
this definition might itself be accused of ironing out the rich discussion on
hegemony in Gramsci (1978; Bocock 1986; Anderson 1976), it is especially use-
ful in pointing out instances of ‘common sense’.
The methodological implications of the critical conception of ideology are
twofold: First, the focus is on how different aspects of language use (see below)
contribute to one-sided constructions of things or events that serve the inter-
ests of particular social groups. This is “meaning in the service of power” in
action. Furthermore, it is equally important for cda to study what is not said,
that is, what we take for granted. According to Fairclough, any reference to
‘common sense’ is “substantially, though not entirely, ideological” (Fairclough
1989: 84, emphasis in original). Because common sense naturalizes our con-
ceptions of everyday life, it is the most effective way of sustaining hegemony—
that is, an exclusive interpretation of reality. The aim of cda is to ‘unmask’ the
ways in which power imbalances are sustained through discourse—indeed,
to get rid of “false consciousness” (Fairclough 1995: 17)—by drawing attention
to the suppression of alternative constructions of the world. Put this way, the
unmasking function of cda could be characterized as a theory of alienation
with a constructionist twist (Berger 1973: 92; see below).
Being ‘critical’ does imply a normative stance, however. cda aims at the
transformation of social practice: “cda is unabashedly normative: any critique
by definition presupposes an applied ethics” (van Dijk 1993: 253). However,
cda does not in itself provide the politics of change. It is not ‘standpoint the-
ory’. ‘False consciousness’ in cda terms refers to the inability to see the human
world for the construction it is, but it does not epistemologically privilege a
particular class or gender, as (early) Marxism and feminist standpoint theory
does. Practically speaking, it is clear that much of cda concentrates on expos-
ing the discursive normalizations of bourgeois and, lately, neoliberal ideolo-
gies, and it is thus an important heir to Marx’s original analyses; however, some
forms of cda have moved away from this original disposition, and it might
be that a ‘left’ and ‘right’ distinction, if you will, is developing within cda
(cf. Richardson 2007: 28–29).
Doing Critical Discourse Analysis
Although all research methods have an epistemological and theoretical

grounding (whether implicit or explicit), the ‘theory heaviness’ of cda can
make practical analysis seem like a daunting task. Some books in the field
(e.g., Fairclough 1992, 2003; Gee 2011) offer guidelines for analysis, but there is
no mechanical way of doing cda. Faced with an apparatus such as that
offered by Fairclough in his otherwise brilliant introductory textbook (2003),
a beginner might easily think that analyzing a single sentence would take a
year and fill a monograph. The ‘secret’ to coping with the bewildering poten-
tial of cda—which textbooks sometimes forget to mention—is that every
discourse-analytical study needs to be designed individually (Hjelm 2011b).
The research question/problem, data, and method need to be aligned in a
way that enables a rich yet practically feasible analysis. Few discourse ana-
lysts concentrate on the same things in their research; rather, they modify
and change their analytical ‘toolkit’ to suit the requirements of different
questions and data. With that in mind, however, there are aspects specific to
doing cda. What makes cda unique is the division of analysis into three dif-
ferent aspects that feed into each other: (a) textual analysis, (b) analysis of
discourse practice, and (c) analysis of social practice (for a diagrammatical
representation of the three aspects, see Fairclough 1992: 73). I will discuss
each of these below.
24 Hjelm
Textual Analysis
At the heart of cda is the analysis of texts. ‘Text’ in cda is broadly conceived
and can include printed, ‘found’ (i.e., created independently of the researcher—
see Silverman 2007) material, such as newspaper text, or ‘manufactured’ data,
such as interview transcripts. There are myriad ways of conducting text
analysis (see, e.g., Fairclough 2003), ranging from the linguistic to the inter
pretive. Here I am following John E. Richardson’s (2007) version, which con-
denses Fairclough’s sometimes-confusing apparatus into a workable toolkit.
Importantly, Richardson’s work also provides a glimpse into the media treat-
ment of Islam, which I consider to be a key issue in the much-discussed
reemergence of religion in the public sphere.
Richardson (2007: 47) suggests that textual analysis in cda should proceed
from the microanalysis of words, through sentences, and on to “larger-scale
analysis of the organization of meaning across a text as a whole” (2007: 46–47).
Put schematically, the progression looks like this:
Words contextualize events and actors. Naming someone an ‘insurgent’ as
opposed to a ‘freedom fighter’ is the classic example of how the description
of people affects our interpretation of them. Similarly, an event acquires
meaning through the words used. For example, in reporting the 1991 war in
Iraq, British journalists used ‘destroy’ and ‘kill’ whenever speaking of Iraqi
actions, whereas us and uk troops were ‘suppressing’, ‘eliminating’, and ‘neu-
tralizing’ (Richardson 2007: 47). These (and many other contrasting word
choices) create a sense of ‘us’ and ‘them’, and in this case depict the actions
of Western troops as mechanical, dehumanized responses rather than a con-
scious aim to hurt an enemy. Boundary maintenance in religious movements
is often accomplished by reframing competing belief systems as evil, as in
the case of the neo-Pentecostal Universal Church of the Kingdom of God,
which depicts the “spiritual entities that play central, positive, healing roles
in Umbanda and Candomble [syncretistic Afro-Brazilian religions] […] as
Table 1.1 The process of textual analysis in cda (adapted from Richardson 2007)
Micro-textual analysis Macro-textual analysis
Structuring of propositions Combining propositions

Words
Transitivity Rhetoric
Modality Narrative
Presupposition
‘demons’” (Engler 2011: 211). Another example is naming. In a report in the

Independent, a British daily newspaper, about the defeat of the government’s
Terror Bill in the House of Lords, the conservative Earl of Hounslow is quoted,
asking: “Why, if the home secretary thinks Mohammad el-Smith wants to do
something and is planning to do something and has talked to others about
doing something nasty, that is not conspiracy?” (quoted in Richardson 2007:
50). The point the earl is making is that existing conspiracy laws would be
sufficient to cover acts of terrorism, but it is the use of ‘Mohammad el-Smith’
that is interesting from a cda perspective. The name is a combination of
‘Smith’, arguably the most common family name in Britain and thus the
‘average man’ (i.e., ‘Joe Bloggs’, ‘John Doe’), and ‘Mohammad’, arguably the
most common male Muslim name. The implication here is that the speaker
“believes the average terrorist suspect to be Muslim” (Richardson 2007: 51).
Transitivity describes the processes depicted in discourse and the relation-
ships between participants in these processes. Richardson (2007: 57) argues
that the analysis of transitivity is the key to understanding representation of
actions in discourse. Especially important is the masking or deletion of agency
through passive sentence construction. ‘Police shoot demonstrators’ is an
active construction, while ‘demonstrators are shot by the police’ is a passive
construction. Although the latter retains transitive action, the transformation
can be taken further by deleting the actor completely, as in ‘demonstrators are
shot’—a common technique in newspaper discourse especially (Fairclough
1992: 27; Richardson 2007: 55). Another common way of transforming agency is
what Fairclough calls “nominalization.” Here, an active process is transformed
into a ‘state of affairs’. Thus, saying ‘capital is mobile’ changes a transitive action
(‘companies move capital around the globe’) into a ‘state of affairs’ without
agency (see Richardson 2007: 56).
The counterpart to transitivity is modality, that is, the ways in which the
“speaker or writer is committed to the claim that he or she is making”
(Richardson 2007: 59). This is very similar to what Goffman (1981) calls “foot-
ing,” referring to the “range of relationships that speakers and writers have to
the descriptions they report” (Potter 1996: 122). Modality is usually indicated by
the use of modal verbs (e.g., may, could, should), their negations (e.g., couldn’t,
shouldn’t), and adverbs (e.g., certainly). Categorical language (e.g., will, must,
certainly) often appears in texts that attempt to be authoritative, but—as criti-
cal discourse analysts like Fairclough and Richardson have shown—a seem-
ingly low degree of commitment can also play a significant role in affecting our
understanding of events. Richardson (2007: 60) quotes a line from the
Independent (25 February 2005) as an example: “Britain could suffer a Madrid-
style terrorist attack in the run-up to the Royal Wedding and the General
26 Hjelm
Election, the country’s most senior police officer warned yesterday.” ‘Could’ in
this sentence actually works to heighten a sense of threat, although no assess-
ment of the likelihood that a terrorist attack ‘will’ happen is given.
Analyzing words, transitivity, and modality means looking at the relationship
between the form and the content (meaning) of texts. Analyzing presupposition,
however, means looking at the tacit assumptions made in texts. Richardson
(2007: 63–64) outlines four linguistic ways in which presupposition is built into
texts. First, certain words—such as stop—presuppose certain meaning—in this
case the existence of movement. Second, the definitive article (the) and posses-
sive articles (his/her, etc.) “trigger presuppositions.” For example, on 11 September
2001 the defense correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, a British broadsheet,
wrote, “the Oriental tradition […] returned in an absolutely traditional form”
(quoted in Richardson 2011: 21). This presupposes that an ‘oriental tradition’
exists and, further, that the terrorist strike on the twin towers was representative
of this tradition or was even the ‘true face’ of the Arab/Muslim world. Third,
questions such as ‘why’, ‘when’, and ‘who’ often presuppose a state of things that
is not explicit in the question itself. For example, the headline “Why do Islamist
terror groups like al-Qaeda and Hamas want to crush the West and destroy
Israel?” (from the Guardian Saturday Review, 8 December 2001, quoted in
Richardson 2007: 63) presupposes not only that Islamist terror groups do want to
crush the West and destroy Israel, but also that both of the mentioned groups are
Islamist terrorist groups and that both of these organizsations want to do both of
these things. Finally, noun modifiers can trigger presuppositions. As Richardson
argues, modifiers are often uncontentious, but in some cases they can be
endowed with presupposition, such as in the Daily Express (a British tabloid)
headline: “Britain’s asylum system takes a new hammering” (25 February 2005,
quoted in Richardson 2007: 64). This presupposes that the asylum system has
taken previous ‘hammerings’, a presupposition that “fits well with the political
agenda of […] a newspaper that regularly decries what it sees as a scandalous
level of ‘abuse’ of the British asylum system” (Richardson 2007: 64).
The above linguistic tools analyze the structuring of propositions on the
level of clauses. Rhetoric and narrative organize these clauses into a coherent
whole (see Table 1.1 above). Rhetoric has been an established part of philoso-
phy, art, and social science from Aristotle to the contemporary ‘new rhetoric’ of
Burke (1951) and Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (1991), for example. For the
purposes of this chapter, suffice it to say that the aim of analyzing rhetorical
tropes such as metaphor and metonymy is to pay attention to the argumenta-
tive and persuasive aspects of the text. One only needs to think of the various
war metaphors used in representing the alleged ‘clash of civilizations’ between
‘the West’ and ‘the Muslim world’.
Finally, in terms of text analysis, there is a focus on narrative. The study of

narrative is, of course, a broad field in itself; in the cda context, analyzing nar-
rative means paying attention to the sequence in which events are presented
in discourse—that is, how a story unfolds. The attention to narrative is impor-
tant because, as Jasinski (2001: 390) says, narratives “establish relationships
between or among things (e.g. events, states, situations) over time” (quoted in
Richardson 2007: 74). There is an important difference between narrative con-
tent (the sequence of events as they occurred) and narrative form (the
sequence of events presented in discourse). The relationship between the two
opens up interesting avenues of inquiry into the how the truth claims of the
narrative are constructed. Again, religion is special in many ways, not least
because the narrative in question takes place on a ‘cosmic’ scale, including
“realities other than those of everyday experience” (Berger and Luckmann
1967: 95). For example, whether a narrative constructs hiv in Africa as God’s
divine punishment or as a problem of inadequate sex education has wide-
ranging effects on policy (see Burchardt 2011).
Analysis of Discourse Practice

As noted above, analyzing discourse is always analyzing language use in a par-
ticular social context. This is the domain of interpreting texts in the light of
broader ‘social practice’ (as discussed below). Fairclough (1992) situates a third,
middle level between texts and social contexts, which he calls “discourse prac-
tice.” This is the field of production and consumption of texts. As Jørgensen
and Phillips (2002: 69) explain, to study discursive practices is to study “how
authors of texts draw on already existing discourses and genres to create a text
and […] how receivers of texts also apply available discourses and genres in the
consumption and interpretation of the texts.” The most important ‘mediating
structures’, if you will, of this kind are interdiscursivity and genre.
Interdiscursivity is Fairclough’s (1992) variant of the more familiar concept
of intertextuality. Intertextuality refers to “the property texts have of being full
of snatches of other texts, which may be explicitly demarcated or merged in,
and which the text may assimilate, contradict, ironically echo, and so forth”
(Fairclough 1992: 84). Fairclough’s use of interdiscursivity emphasizes the
implicit aspects of borrowing from a broader repository of discourses in addi-
tion to explicit textual references. Most obviously, texts often include quota-
tions and reported speech, which are used to support a newspaper story, for
example (Richardson 2007: 101–106). However, these are only the manifest
properties of interdiscursivity. In addition to borrowed texts, there is a broader
borrowing from what Fairclough (following Foucault) calls “orders of dis-
course”: What counts as ‘appropriate’ talk in a pulpit, in a confessional, or in a
28 Hjelm
Sunday school class, for example, is dependent on an implicit sense of

convention.
Closely related to the above notion, genre in cda refers to “a relatively stable
set of conventions that is associated with, and partly enacts, a socially ratified
type of activity, such as informal chat, buying goods in a shop, a job interview,
a television documentary, a poem, or a scientific article” (Fairclough 1992: 126).
The examples Fairclough mentions are typical of social situations that are
highly conventionalized. These conventions obviously have important effects
on the discourse used in particular situations. Constructions of identities, rela-
tionships, and beliefs in generic discourse tell us a lot about social conventions,
assumptions, and expectations—and, in our case, about the role of religious
discourse in particular social contexts.
Analysis of Social Practice

Although discourse is capable of both reproducing and transforming society, it
would be naïve to think that all discourse is equal. We can all have an opinion,
but who gets to speak in public and who is listened to depend on one’s struc-
tural positioning. In the case of Islam in Britain, for example, there has been a
rather glaring imbalance between bureaucratic sources and Muslim respon-
dents in newspaper discourse (Richardson 2006). Similarly, during the early
stages of the Satanism scare in Finland, the hegemonic discourse was based
almost exclusively on evangelical Christian ‘expertise’ on the topic (Hjelm
2008). The point is even clearer in everyday practice: In Western societies, most
people prefer to take medical advice from qualified professionals rather than
faith healers (although there are important exceptions to this, such a Christian
Science).
Unlike the analysis of texts, the analysis of social practice is not easily adapt-
able into a ‘toolkit’. Locke (2004: 42) summarizes the analysis of social practice as
“a focus on such things as the immediate situation that has given rise to its pro-
duction and the various sociocultural practices and discursive conditions at both
institutional and societal levels that provide a wider contextual relevance.” The
question, then, is whether texts support particular types of social practice by
reproducing a hegemonic agenda, or whether there are “transformative impulses”
(Locke 2004: 43) in the text. An example of this is a legal proposal presented in
the Finnish parliament in 2005 by two members of the Green Party. The aim of
the proposal was to change laws privileging the Lutheran state church (and to a
lesser degree the Orthodox church) in order to make religious communities in
Finland more equal. The interesting part is not necessarily the staunch opposi-
tion to the proposal by the leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Party
or other publicly Christian mps; more telling was the fact that, out of 200 mps,
only eight took part in the discussion in the first place. The obvious opponents of
the proposal did speak, but mps from the Left, for example—conventionally
depicted as secular—were as silent as the mainstream. The privileged position of
the Lutheran church in Finland is a deeply hegemonic social practice that is
reflected in the discourse and the lack of discussion—the ‘taken-for-grantedness’
of the social situation (for a full discussion, see Hjelm 2014a).
The above example repeats the point that texts alone are not sufficient in
analyzing discourse. Discourse—or the absence of discourse—makes sense
only within a broader social framework. The social context is analyzed empiri-
cally by looking at actors, groups, and relationships within groups as well as
between actors in society. In the framework of cda, the context is also ana-
lyzed theoretically by looking at the structuration of power in a field of ideol-
ogy and hegemony. It is this analysis of social practice that makes cda
distinctively different from some other approaches to discourse analysis. It is
also analysis of social practice that gives cda explanatory power: Where dis-
course analysis has traditionally been more suitable for answering ‘how’ ques-
tions (see Silverman and Gubrium 1994), a focus on the social context enables
us to argue that a particular line of action was one among a range of actions
that the discursive framework enabled—or alternatively, to analyze how the
choice of action was constrained by the social and cultural framework. In Max
Weber’s terms, this would be something akin to a ‘causally adequate’ explana-
tion (Weber 2001[1904–5]; Buss 1999; Ringer 2002).
However, in order to make more conclusive causal claims, other types of
research—such as surveys or ethnography—are needed. This is the less-
discussed aspect of cda. A full-blown research project employing cda would
study the actual processes of production and consumption in addition to the
textual research (cf. Fairclough 1992: 86). The study of religion and media, for
example, was for a long time interested solely in discourses about religion in
the media, but recent developments in research have tipped the balance
towards the study of (a) how the contexts of media production influence
media representations of religion (as in the case of news; e.g., Hoover 1998),
(b) how audiences receive explicitly religious discourse, and (c) how religious
discourses and identities are constructed through the use of seemingly non-
religious media products (e.g., Clark 2003).
Conclusion
Recent years have witnessed a welcome interest in discursive approaches to the

study of religion. While necessary theoretical debates are under way, traditions
30 Hjelm
and ‘schools’ might be forming as well. Whether this turns out to be fruitful for
the field remains to be seen. The above contribution attempts, in its own limited
way, to provide tools to bridge the gap I identified at the beginning: Theory and
method in the discursive study of religion needs to pay more attention to ques-
tions of power. Arguing that power is present in all theoretizations of discourse,
and hence that we don’t need a specifically ‘critical’ approach, is not only a mas-
sive misrepresentation of the field, but seems actually to be very effective in
masking questions of power in empirical analyses. Certainly there is no conges-
tion in the power/domination/ideology-sensitive study of religion lane.
In this context, I argue, we need a critical approach to the discursive study
of religion—an approach that examines the role of religion in the reproduc-
tion and transformation of social inequality and domination, the ways in
which religion and religions are legitimated and de-legitimated, and the dia-
lectical processes of public discourse and constructions of religion. Critical
discursive study of religion (cdsr) that draws from the Marxist tradition pro-
vides a powerful and yet mostly untapped source for analyzing how this legiti-
mation, reproduction, and transformation is achieved. The outline presented
here—which itself is an outcome of dialogue with previous thinking on the
subject—is not a be-all and end-all statement. Rather, in the spirit of discourse
analysis, it is an invitation to dialogue.
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chapter 2
No Danger! The Current Re-evaluation of Religion

and Luhmann’s Concept of Risk
Stephanie Garling
Luhmann and the Observation of Religion
Over the last two decades, communication about religion has broadly
re-entered the political arena. This change is referred to as a so-called “return”
(cf. Hatzopoulos 2003; Ebaugh 2002; Helco 2003) or “resurgence” (cf. Riesebrodt
2000) of religion, which is closely connected with a more general questioning
of the idea of ever-advancing secularization. Simultaneously to religion return-
ing to the agenda of political communication, a re-evaluation is also taking
place. Religion is no longer perceived as a threat to be excluded from political
communication. Instead, a perspective that views religion as carrying substan-
tial potential as a useful political resource is increasingly taking hold. In this
process, religion is increasingly presented as something that may lead to better
political decisions and should therefore be acknowledged within political
processes. It no longer appears as something uncontrollable, but rather as a
governable matter. But how does this current re-evaluation of religion take
place? Which argumentative strategies are applied to transform the meaning
associated with the term and to create this new image of religion? What does
this tell us about the internal communication strategies of the political system
and its ability to incorporate potentially interfering factors and to stabilize
itself? These questions are the focus of this chapter as it shows how the current
image of religion is shifting.
A field that perfectly reflects the above-mentioned re-evaluation of religion
is the field of development cooperation. This field will therefore serve as an
example in this analysis1 and will help to illustrate the arguments this article
1 The materials used to illustrate the theoretical considerations referred to here derive from a
research project on understandings of ‘religion’ in German, Swiss, and Austrian developmen-
tal assistance. All of them are programmatic texts from this policy field, such as speeches,
training handbooks, conference invitations, brochures, and presentations. They were pro-
duced by political actors active in development cooperation and published between the late

36 Garling
puts forward. In development cooperation, religion has long been character-

ized as a taboo, as something that disturbs secular organizations in doing their
job properly and is to be avoided, since dealing with it might cause serious
problems (cf. ver Beek 2000; Deneulin and Bano 2009). In the present, however,
religion has come to be perceived as a phenomenon bearing considerable
potential for development processes (Ma20: 5) and which thus should be
viewed as a “powerful resource” that can have a positive impact (Ma30: 4).
From the current perspective of practitioners in development cooperation, it
is therefore necessary to emphasise the “civilising side of the sacred” (Ma8: 11)2
and to foreground its prospects and potentials. This is thought to leave room
for decision-making, governability, and “creativity” (Ma13: 6)3 in dealing with
religion within political processes.
Niklas Luhmann’s theoretical considerations allow us to take a closer look at
the communicative shifts that currently surround the term religion. On the
basis of his understanding of danger and risk, as well as Nassehi’s thoughts on
risk communication, this chapter describes the communicative strategies that
are applied in the discourse underlying this re-evaluation. It traces the current
processes of re-evaluation and identifies the arguments used in transforming
religion from a threat to be avoided into a risk that needs to be included in
political processes, thus turning it into a governable phenomenon. Drawing on
Luhmann’s systems-theoretical thinking and its possible applications to dis-
course analysis, the first section will sketch the theoretical background and the
assumptions made. Based on Luhmann’s distinction between risk and danger,
the second section of the chapter will show the mechanisms involved in the
discursive practices that make religion appear as a risk rather than a danger. In
the final section, I will discuss what this means for the actors involved in the
field of political communication and for their capacity to act.
Selection of Risks
Following Niklas Luhmann, every social operation is based on distinction and
therefore relies on self-reference and external reference. Systems that engage
in these social operations are unable to observe the distinctions they use
while they are using them. Metaphorically, Luhmann describes this as lying
beyond the system’s horizon (Luhmann 1986: 23). According to Luhmann, it is
nevertheless possible to look beyond this horizon and observe the distinctions
1990s and 2009 on the Internet and/or in leaflets, brochures, handouts, etc. The original lan-
guage of the texts is German. The English translations used in this article are my own.
2 The original quotation is: “zivilisierende Seite des Heiligen.”
3 The original quotation is: “kreativen Umgang.”
No Danger! 37
at work. What we need to do is change our position. Luhmann differentiates

between two positions: first-order and second-order observation. Whereas
first-order observation cannot transcend the boundaries of its own horizon,
second-order observation is capable of looking beyond and observing the lim-
its that define the observed system because of how that system functions. The
position of second-order observation can therefore be described as that of an
observer observing observers. In this position, we can observe “another observer
to see what the latter can and cannot see” (Luhmann 1993: 21). This dual her-
meneutical process allows the second-order observer to make the conditions
and limits of the primary observation visible and is, as Teubert (2010: 130)
shows, adaptable to the observation of discourse. At the same time, Luhmann
allows one to drive this process further and to take on a “meta-discursive per-
spective” (see von Stuckrad in chapter nine below4) in the sense of third-order
observation. This would allow one to observe the distinctions the discourse
analyst makes while observing discourse; thus, third-order observation pro-
vides a way to reflect on discursive involvement while observing discourse.
Therefore, as Luhmann argues, no observation can ever be “better knowledge,”
but “only a particular kind of observing of its own environment” (Luhmann
1986: 26–27), and there will always be “unobservability as an unmarked space
carried along in all observations” (Luhmann 2000: 61).
To return to the first two levels of observation: In relation to the discussions
of risk in political rhetoric, Luhmann points out that these discussions—
involving “safety experts, but also those who accuse them of not doing enough
for safety” (Luhmann 1993: 21)—occur at the first level of observation, and the
respective actors are therefore first-order observers. The crucial distinction for
them is the one between risk and security. As sufficient information is thought
to be the key to more security, they deem it necessary to demand both more
and better information and also complain “about the information being with-
held by those who wish to prevent others from projecting other interpretations
or making greater demands on an objectively given universe of facts” (Luhmann
1993: 21). Luhmann adopts a different position on the necessity of complete
information when he points out:
Practical experience tends to teach us the opposite: the more we know,

the better we know what we do not know, and the more elaborate our risk
awareness becomes. The more rationally we calculate and the more com-
plex the calculations become, the more aspects come into view involving
uncertainty about the future and thus risk. Seen from this point of view,
4 For further reflections on how meaning is attributed in discourse analysis, cf. Wrana 2014.
38 Garling
it is no accident that the risk perspective has developed parallel to the

growth in scientific specialization. Modern risk-oriented society is a
product not only of the perception of consequences of technological
achievement. Its seed is contained in the expansion of research possibili-
ties and of knowledge itself.
luhmann 1993: 28
Accepting this position allows one to avoid “assum[ing] that such things as risk
exist” and to adopt a perspective according to which it is “only a matter of dis-
covering and investigating” them (Luhmann 1993: 6).
A respective analysis of the construction of risk(s) therefore needs to oper-
ate at the level of second-order observation of political communication, as this
position of observing observation will allow an observer to focus on the process
of how concepts are formed—in our case, the current concept of religion. It
offers the chance to “ask for the form that guides an observer when he refers to
an observation as a risk” (Luhmann 1993: 18). Luhmann assumes that second-
order observations also need to be based on distinctions, since otherwise the
observer is not able to indicate what it is that he/she wishes to observe
(Luhmann 1993: 14). Therefore, we require another distinction—or, in Luhmann’s
words, terms need another form—to make the operation of observing observa-
tions possible. Luhmann suggests using the distinction between risk and dan-
ger at this second level, as this enables one to observe how another observer
makes attributions (Luhmann 1993: 21). With regard to this distinction,
Luhmann takes a different approach to risk than the one developed by Ulrich
Beck (1992), which is based on the difference between risk and security.
Speaking of danger in Luhmann’s sense would mean that “possible loss is
considered to have been caused externally” (Luhmann 1993: 22). One is exposed
to danger, and “future losses are seen not at all as the consequences of a deci-
sion that has been made, but are attributed to an external factor” (Luhmann
1993: 101–102). In contrast, risk in Luhmann’s terms means that a potential
loss is regarded as the consequence of a decision (Luhmann 1993: 21–22), and
decision-making therefore only plays a role in the case of risk. “[L]osses that
may occur in the future are attributed to decisions made. They are seen as the
consequences of decisions, moreover as consequences that, with regard to the
advantages they bring, cannot be justified as costs” (Luhmann 1993: 101). In
comparison, danger “allows the profits to be forgotten that could be earned if
risky decisions are made” (Luhmann 1993: 24). Risk, on the other hand, with its
focus on potential benefits, renders us oblivious to danger. Therefore “[i]t is
apparently easier to distance oneself politically from dangers than from risks”
(Luhmann 1993: 31), since “[b]y taking risks we gain opportunities we would
No Danger! 39
otherwise forego. This is not a particularly exciting observation. It appears to

leave it up to the actor to decide whether he is going to take the plunge or not”
(Luhmann 1993: 71).
Reversing the Paradoxes of Risks
Returning to the matter of religion in current political rhetoric, we observe

that an image of an amendable risk is being created. As mentioned above, re-
evaluation of religion is taking place, in which religion is shifting from being
considered a danger that is better treated as a taboo to becoming a risk, the
consequences of which seem to be assessable. The paradox that underlies this
shift is that it will never be possible to know what will happen in the future. To
enable this shift from danger to risk, it is therefore this paradox that needs to
be made invisible through communication. This kind of communication is
what Nassehi (1997: 45), drawing on Luhmann, calls deparadoxing (entpara
doxieren). He notes that within this process of resolving the paradox inherent
in risk communication, special argumentative practices ensure that the poten-
tial gap between current decisions and future outcomes is, if not completely
overcome, at least closed to a substantial degree (Nassehi 1997: 45). Although
the future may still be unknown, its contingency can thus be reduced to the
point where one can expect to make decisions with beneficial outcomes in
the future. Nassehi identifies four such argumentative practices—scientific-
technical, legal, political, and moral—which, as we will see in the following
paragraphs, can be found in the same way in the political rhetoric that cur-
rently surrounds the term religion.
Scientific-Technical Argumentative Practices

The reference to analysis, evaluation, and monitoring is the first example—
and the most significant one at that—of the scientific-technical practices that,
according to Nassehi (1997: 44), use mostly quantitative instruments to reduce
contingency. According to development practitioners, applying these instru-
ments to religion should “belong to the standards of quality management”
(Ma14: 45).5 This would enable observation, data collection, and information
exchange (Nassehi 1997: 44). Advocacy of these instruments of quality man-
agement is based on an ideal type, the benefits of which Hellstern and
Wollmann (1984: 20), in their trend-setting and still renowned handbook on
5 The original quotation is: “Analyse, Monitoring und Evaluation religiöser Faktoren sollten […]
zum Standard des Qualitätsmanagements gehören.”
40 Garling
evaluation, describe in the following way: The application of these instruments

enables one to test the relations between causes and effects and makes it pos-
sible to determine whether an intervention effectively produced the desired
results. Risks are defined quantitatively, through data that is obtained system-
atically, and the empirical methodology of the social sciences makes control
possible. Undesired side-effects and consequences can be analyzed critically
and in an orderly fashion. According to this widespread understanding, which
Hellstern and Wollmann summarize in a very concise manner, analysis, evalu-
ation, and monitoring make it possible to estimate impacts. Therefore, these
instruments can help avoid future losses. Since these systematic observations
seem to provide a means of making the right decisions, the future becomes
foreseeable (cf. Schwarz 2006: 242). The paradox that the future can never been
known is made invisible by creating an image of academic quality control
based on systematization, objectivity, and reliability. This makes it possible to
deal with the risks of religion and put its potential to optimal use (Ma15: 5). It
becomes a resource of argumentation, capable of ensuring the credibility and
acceptance of political actions.
Scientific procedure, as the guarantor of the accuracy of data and state-
ments about reality, also plays a role in the second example of scientific-
technical argumentation practices that currently surround the term religion.
The argument is that religion is a socially constructed category, since it can be
and has been altered. When stated in political communication, this claim that
religion is a social construction is often made with reference to social scientists
and their work. Some of the programmatic publications that argue along this
line even use citations—including footnotes and references—to strengthen
their argument (cf. Ma16: 63). In the same way, arguments that conceive of
religion as something primordial are weakened: “[I]n academia, […] it has
already been acknowledged for a long time that religion is nothing other than
something human-made” (Ma17: 21). In both cases, social scientists or academ-
ics in general are referred to as experts who command the proper knowledge
and therefore count as a reliable source of information. At the same time, the
argument that religion is constructed allows the actors not only to become
active in constructing religion themselves, but also to lessen the risk that their
current work in the interpretation and exegesis of religion and its texts and
practices might have no effect and therefore no prospect of success. The refer-
ences to academia thus reinforce the idea that political actors are able to influ-
ence future outcomes while constructing and structuring reality.
The third example—found in the texts on the issue of religion that actors in
the field of development assistance have produced over the last fifteen years—
is the borrowing of terms and ideas from the field of diversity management.
No Danger! 41
They use these terms and ideas to explain that productively dealing with the
diversity of religion is possible. They refer to certain academic-technical terms
used in this field, such as the common characterization of religion as a
“resource” (Ma18: 30)6 and its diversity as containing much “potential” (Ma18: 32)7
that is currently “unused” (Ma19: 37)8 or “disregarded” (Ma20: 5),9 arguing that
it is necessary to tap into it. As with the other two examples of scientific-
technical argumentative practices, the usage of this kind of terminology also
connotes that risks can be kept under control and that religion can be pre-
dicted to have positive effects on processes of development. Religion and its
diversity do not appear as a problem, but rather as a source of enriching inspi-
ration. Uncertainties are made invisible, and the paradox inherent in religion
(as in any other social category) is resolved.
Legal Argumentative Practices

That every (interreligious) dialogue needs rules (cf. Ma21: 15; Ma6: 6) is a state-
ment frequently encountered in the texts analyzed. According to Nassehi’s
definition, these statements can be counted as legal argumentative practices,
as they ensure standardization and lead to normalization (Nassehi 1997: 44).
These “rules” to which the actors refer are intended to ensure that only the
“right” people take part in the dialogue, and that it can therefore take place
on equal, fair, open, and nonviolent terms. At the same time—and entirely in
the spirit of Nassehi’s understanding of legal argumentative practices—
these rules for dialogue ensure that risky decision-makers are held account-
able (Nassehi 1997: 44–45) by excluding them from the dialogue. This provides
the grounds for not inviting groups that are classified as fundamentalists
(Ma18: 31)—who are willing to resort to violence (Ma22: 53) and have their
“own political agenda” (Ma18: 31)—to participate in the dialogues because, in
the judgement of those making the rules, they do not ascribe to the agenda of
human rights, nonviolence, and other fundamental moral values (Ma23: 20).
Cooperation with them would jeopardize the valuable and beneficial results of
the dialogue and would therefore be too dangerous. The rules attempt to
ensure that this will not happen, so as not to endanger future progress result-
ing from the dialogue.
A second example of a legal argumentative practice that assists in resolv-
ing the paradox inherent in communication on religion is the development
6 The original quotation is: “Ressource.”

7 The original quotation is: “Potential.”
8 The original quotation is: “ungenutzt.”
9 The original quotation is: “missachtet.”
42 Garling
practitioners’ emphasis on working from texts when interpreting and con-

structing religious ideas and practices. Working on the basis of texts guaran-
tees that certain rules of procedure are applied in this process. Sticking to
these rules creates the impression that the actors’ normative re-evaluations
must be correct. They take advantage of the fact that arguments about reli-
gion that are based on religious texts are thought to be more meaningful, to
lead to an accurate understanding of religious practices and ideas, and there-
fore, when applied to reality, to ensure successful outcomes. In referring to
religious texts and rights in this way, the risks—for example, of drawing con-
clusions that might yield detrimental results—seem to be mitigated, again
rendering the future outcomes of utilizing religion in development coopera-
tion governable.
Political Argumentative Practices

Nassehi understands political argumentative practices as practices that (1) agi-
tate for the acceptance of risk and (2) try to entice those affected to jump on
the bandwagon by advocating the idea of participation and disseminating
individual risk and responsibility (Nassehi 1997: 44). Based on this definition,
political argumentative practices are of course the most significant when ana-
lyzing political communication, as in our case of development cooperation;
generally speaking, all of the material referred to here could, in a broader sense,
be treated as political argumentative practices.
However, since the example of dialogical structures is well suited to illus-
trate both of Nassehi’s characteristics—agitation for the acceptance of risks
and inclusion of everyone affected—I will take a closer look at them. On the
one hand, dialogue can be used to a certain degree to promote the acceptance
of risk. On the other hand, dialogue can serve as a symbol for an ideal situation
geared towards directly involving all of the people concerned in the risky
decisions. In addition, dialogue is currently used as a kind of cure-all and
therefore enjoys a high standing in dealing with religion(s) in general. From
the development practitioners’ standpoint, dialogue offers the possibility to
find (the correct) solutions. Dialogue provides a means of arriving at (correct)
knowledge and (appropriate) interpretations in highly ambivalent circum-
stances. Especially in recent decades, dialogue has grown to become a symbol
for harmonious risk communication free from power relations. In our case,
dialogue seems to carry the ability to resolve the risks that lie in the diversity of
religion by creating consensus. This consensus integrates (almost) all of those
affected and makes sure that those risks are distributed and thus become
acceptable. This mechanism describes how dialogue produces an image of
religion as governable and manageable.
No Danger! 43
Moral Argumentative Practices

Moral argumentative practices are primarily marked by appeals to responsibil-
ity (Nassehi 1997: 44). Risk must eventually be accepted and approved if “the
interpretation and exegesis of religious texts” is not to be left to the “dema-
gogues” (Ma24: 71);10 this ensures that wrongdoing is righted and that the
legitimization thereof is refuted. These appeals are often based on arguments
referring to the situations of girls and women, who are presented as vulnerable
and in need of protection, even if this requires taking some risks (cf. Ma19: 13;
Ma8: 28; Ma20: 7; Ma25). The developing narrative resembles a heroic story:
evil must be resisted and the weak must be empowered. To achieve these noble
aims and reach a just agreement, it is worth taking the potential risk of work-
ing with religion for this purpose.
In addition to these moral appeals, the actors also ensure that risky deci-
sions will always be treated very responsibly—for example, by submitting
decisions to an open, truthful, and just dialogue, or by gathering sufficient
information before decisions are made. In this way, appropriate moral conduct
again enables control of the few remaining potential risks involved in making
use of religion.
Linguistic Strategies
Luhmann’s line of systems-theoretical thinking, on which Nassehi draws, dis-
regards linguistic strategies of the kind emphasized by Foucault (2002 [1969]:
67–68), for example. Or as Andersen phrases it: “I do not believe that Luhmann
has ever fully elaborated on the overall connections between these” (Andersen
2003: 88). This might be due to the fact that Luhmann sees the production of
ideas and of consciousness as indispensible conditions but not as part of the
communication process (Luhmann 1986: 29).11
Nevertheless, both analytical approaches are connected and seek to elabo-
rate the contingency of constructions. I therefore follow Andersen in arguing
for a connection between them. By including linguistic strategies in addition
to the four practices to which Nassehi refers, I offer a view of how they play a
key role in shaping our common-sense understandings of what is considered
10 The original quotation is: “Aber wir dürfen den Koran und die Überlieferungen nicht
irgendwelchen Demagogen überlassen. Wir müssen uns auch selbst damit auseinander-
setzen und zeitgemäße Interpretationen fordern.”
11 This discussion cannot be fully elaborated here, as it would lead too far from the point
being made in this chapter. For further discussion, see Luhmann (1986: 28–31). As an addi-
tional example of how discourse-analytical and systems-theoretical thinking can be fruit-
fully combined, see Rösch (2001, esp. pages 92–108).
44 Garling
normal, uncontroversial, and natural. One prerequisite of such an endeavor is

to treat the guiding principles of a Foucauldian semantic analysis and of
Luhmann’s systems theory “as a pool, rather than distinct elements of one ana-
lytical strategy” (Andersen 2003: 88). This accomplishes two things: On the one
hand, it allows one to use the “rather general but also highly potent theory of
second-order observation” (Andersen 2003: 93) to illustrate that a concept—in
our case religion—is founded on a paradoxical distinction. On the other hand,
linguistic strategies can be applied to demonstrate how the paradox is resolved
by tracing specific semantics and their guiding principles.
According to Foucault (2002 [1969]: 68), metaphors, figures, and poetic lan-
guage in particular are often applied for the same purpose of re-evaluation as
Nassehi’s practices—namely, as a means of moderating present-day uncer-
tainties and presenting the future as governable. Religion is often framed as
being associated with attributes that derive from the root word “rich,” such as
“enriching” (Ma31: 20)12 or “richness” (Ma28: 23),13 or with related terms, such
as “prosperous” (Ma32: 37). Attributes of this kind are used particularly often
when the diversity of religion is re-evaluated as an opportunity or resource
rather than a threatening and uncontrollable phenomenon. Such terms are
helpful in accentuating the positive nature of the actors’ preferred course. The
semantic field of richness evokes an optimistic view of the future and favors a
focus on potential rather than on potential risk.
The roundtable is another often-used instrument that is closely interlinked
with the political argumentative practice of dialogue and can be seen as its
corresponding argumentative strategy. Deriving from King Arthur and his
knights, the roundtable symbolizes the equal treatment of all concerned par-
ties and emphasizes that they all seek to achieve a fair balance of interests,
which includes consensus and compromise. It creates an image of a harmoni-
ous process of developing ways to make the future a better one for all. Again,
participation serves to collectively distribute risk and insecurity and lessen the
burden on the individual. In the development practitioners’ own words, the
common goal of a roundtable is to “change the status quo for the better”
(Ma26).14
The positive nature of this change is reflected in another linguistic figure
that is often connected with religion: the metaphors of sight and light.
According to the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1957: 432), these
metaphors are “unrivalled” in their “meaningfulness and subtle possibilities of
12 The original quotation is: “Bereicherung.”

13 The original quotation is: “Reichtum.”
14 The original quotation is: “positive Veränderung des Status Quo.”
No Danger! 45
transformation.”15 It is therefore hardly surprising that these metaphors are

widely used in the context of religion. What is surprising, however, is that their
usage seems to follow a common pattern: It serves to resolve the paradox of the
possibility of future losses by evoking an image of an enlightened, bright, and
therefore identifiable and positive future. For example, according to the devel-
opment practitioners, the diversity of religion provides the “opportunity to see
our own position in greater clarity” (Ma27: 4). The metaphor is also used in
descriptions in which these actors show how interpretation and exegesis helps
to reach a better understanding of religion. In the respective workshops that
provide an opportunity to interpret religious texts together with the affected
people, things are interpreted “in the light of”16 objective relations (Ma28: 38)
rather than by following the religious leader “blindly” (Ma29: 69). The develop-
ment practitioners believe that these workshops and (new) interpretations
can lead to an awakening based on realization and insight (Ma28: 38). They can
therefore positively contribute to containing risks. Terms such as ‘reflection’
and ‘insight’ can also be found in these descriptions and are part of these lin-
guistic strategies. All in all, the metaphor of light creates the illusion that one
has understood (Blumenberg 1957: 446). Since the actors believe that through
interpretation and exegesis enlightenment prevails against blindness and
delusion, the ambivalence of religion again seems to be bypassed. This does
not happen by default, but, according to the actors, requires that the truth be
brought to light. Only through direct action—such as carrying out interpreta-
tion workshops under the guidance of development practitioners—can the
correct interpretations be made recognizable. The metaphors of light and
sight therefore support the idea that the development practitioners must take
an active role in making religion controllable and governable.
In summary, linguistic strategies such as the narratives of richness, harmo-
nious balancing, and extensive insight lead to the same results as Nassehi’s
practices: they seemingly lower the risks of decision-making in the context of
religion.
Risk Means Deciding (or Not Deciding)
As we have seen so far, religion is increasingly losing its reputation as a danger-

ous phenomenon that causes disorientation, that cannot be influenced, and
15 The original quotation is: “Aussagefähigkeit und subtiler Wandlungsmöglichkeit […]

unvergleichlich.”
16 The original quotation is: “im Lichte.”
46 Garling
that therefore needs to be banned from communication. Through the com-

municative practices illustrated above, religion is increasingly seen as a gov-
ernable risk. It is embedded in arguments that strengthen the idea of religion
as something predictable and calculable, something that can be reflected on,
explained, and understood in academic terms or systematically brought into
proper form by means of interpretation and exegesis. Religion is increasingly
acknowledged as something that bears many “risk opportunities”—as Luhmann
phrased it—and can therefore be seen as an enriching resource with much
potential. Through these argumentative structures, risks are concealed from
view, and those that cannot be denied are at least minimized, kept under con-
trol, or widely distributed. At the same time, those taking the risks can be sure
that they are acting from the moral high ground.
On the one hand, this has led to decision-making beginning to play an
increasingly important role. In the system of acting/not-acting (a situation
that, according to Luhmann, political actors in general face), there is a general
preference for acting. Not-acting is the less valued option, as the potential reli-
gion might bear would then be wasted. On the other hand, the development
practitioners have the impression of gaining the capacity to act. Policy-making
appears as an orderly attempt to reduce risks, and the political system presents
itself as a system of corporatist management equipped with the steering
capacity to accomplish this. Acting in matters of religion therefore incurs and
awards responsibility and liability at the same time.
We may sum up the first step in the above-mentioned communication
strategies as itself constituting the paradox of a contingent future. Religion is
perceived as a danger with ambivalent features, a danger that causes distur-
bance and situations of undecidability. Therefore, it is not possible to know
what will happen in the future when utilizing it. It seems that the way to
resist the threat emerging from this paradox of not knowing the future is to
actively contribute to producing it in the first place. This lays the ground-
work for the second step, the kind of “creativity” to which the development
actors are referring. This creativity creates moments of openness that derive
from the general impossibility of the system ever achieving complete syste-
maticity. “The paradox points to the abyssal foundation of any system and
substitutes this abyss with the formulation of a paradox which, in turn, has
to be deparadoxized” (Stäheli 2003: 10). Thus the paradox already includes
the promise of resolving the paradox. Stäheli therefore speaks of the paradox
as a hegemonic strategy that, in a third step, “re-articulates the identity of
the system” (Stäheli 2003: 11) as it already carries the preconditions for stabi-
lizing meaning. In our case, the paradox of religion stabilizes and strength-
ens the political system. By incorporating religion into political discourse,
No Danger! 47
c onstituting it as a danger and reinterpreting it as a risk, the political code of

deciding/not-deciding is re-articulated.
Not Fault-Finding but Problematization
Adopting Luhmann’s perspective of observing observations on the basis of the

distinction between risk and danger allows us to grasp how risks are consti-
tuted. These reflections on the conditions under which we interpret reality
allow us to articulate more on the first level, which—through the distinction
of security/risk—always includes a normative striving for more security. In our
special case, this perspective reveals how the terminology of religion is cur-
rently shifting from being a danger to being a risk. Luhmann maintains that
the point of analyzing such shifts by observing observations is not fault-finding
or knowing it all, but that such an analysis is just a particular mode of observ-
ing the relation between a system and its environment (Luhmann 1986: 27). As
noted above, this mode of observation can always be submitted to some other
observation—for example, to a third-order observation that can prevent it
from being trapped in “category mistakes” (see Horii in Chapter 12 below) and
viewing phenomena such as religion in terms of generic ideas. As Luhmann
points out elsewhere, in the case of risk discussions, this particular mode of
observation offers the opportunity to “cool down considerably the
unnecessar[il]y heated public discussion on risk-related topics, and allow a
more moderate tone to prevail” (Luhmann 1993: 28). This would make a con-
structive starting point when discussing and deciding upon current issues put
into relation with religion.
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Boden—Braucht die Demokratie die Religion?” Power Point Präsentation.
[Ma14] Holenstein, Anne-Marie, ed. 2008. “Entwicklung und Religion. Erfahrungen aus
islamisch geprägten Umfeldern.” Reader 2. Bern.
[Ma15] Holenstein, Anne-Marie, ed. 2009. “Entwicklung und Religion. Folgerungen für
die Praxis. Methoden und Instrumente.” Schlussdokument. Bern.
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durch den Kulturdschungel.” Frankfurt.
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Erfahrungen und Perspektiven-Beispiele aus Asien, Afrika und dem Mittleren Osten.”
Available at http://www.gtz.de/de/dokumente/de-asien-islam-fachtagung2005.pdf.
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[Ma19] GTZ, ed. 2007. “Aus der Arbeit der GTZ.” Akzente 03/2007.
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[Ma21] DED, ed. 2005. dedBrief. Zeitschrift des deutschen Entwicklungsdienstes 4/2005.
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_arabischen_welt.pdf. Accessed 17 January 2012.
50 Garling
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Entwicklungspolitik mit der Region Nahost / Nordafrika.” Bonn/Berlin. Available at
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Modernization—Promoting Sustainable Economic Development.” Eschborn.
chapter 3
The Matter of Meaning and the Meaning of Matter:

Explorations for the Material and Discursive Study
of Religion
George Ioannides
Recent critical theory has seen increasing attention paid to questions of

matter and materiality as that which is more than a constitutive medium
for the determinations of society, culture, and language, as that which
exceeds socio-cultural discourse, and as that which has agency in the mate-
rialization of reality. As a result of these explorations, variously labeled
‘new materialist’, there has been a serious reconsideration of what counts
as the ‘matter’ for materialist thought today and an attendant attempt to
overcome the classical oppositions of matter and discourse, materialism
and idealism. In a renewed (re)turn to ontological and epistemological
questions surrounding these issues, the neglect of the materiality of matter
in social constructionist scholarship, particularly that which engages the
analysis of discursive representations in the constitution of reality, is cri-
tiqued. Instead, it is argued that there are significant ways in which matter
as well as discourse matters to the processes of material and discursive
materializations.
This chapter postulates such an argument in its examination of recent
discourse-analytical approaches in the study of religion. Through an engage-
ment with the current uptake of discourse analysis (critical or otherwise) as a
methodology or research program in religious studies scholarship, I will dem-
onstrate that these religio-discursive analyses constitute discursive practices
as a productive socio-cultural field at the expense of the very matter of bodies,
both human and nonhuman. I argue that various scholars of the discursive
study of religion often produce a material and discursive understanding of dis-
course, but not of materiality. Therefore, in seeking to understand the precise
causal nature of discursive and material religious practices that take account
of the mutual constitution and imbrication of discourse and materiality, in
light of recent critical theory that considers the material world as more than
discursively constructed and apprehended, this chapter analyzes the work of
Karen Barad and the wider new materialism as linked with the study of reli-
gion and its renewed concern—in some quarters—with material culture and

52 Ioannides
the agential qualities of matter. This analysis will accordingly present the study
of religion with an alternative, yet more rigorous and integrated theoretical
approach for thinking through the relations and forms of discursive and mate-
rial imagination and materialization that constitute peoples’ relations to cer-
tain practices and experiences that come to be lived as ‘religious’. This chapter
thus aims to interrogate not only what a material and discursive study of reli-
gion might look like, but a material-discursive one at that.
Matters of Discourse
In his recent The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive

Change, 1800–2000 (2014), Kocku von Stuckrad scrutinizes the historical “con-
struction” of (the study of) religion and science, of “the various meanings that
are attributed to religion and science in cultural communication and practice”
(viii). Specifically, von Stuckrad is concerned with a meta-analysis of the lin-
guistic and cultural production of knowledge about religion, or the discourse
(and discourses) of religion (see also von Stuckrad 2010; 2013). For von Stuckrad,
and for various other scholars of religion who have employed discursive analy-
ses in their work (many of whom are contributors to this volume),1 to write
about a discursive study of religion is to understand that ‘religion’ is “an empty
signifier in the sense that it is historically, socially and culturally constructed
and negotiated in various situations. These constructions are ‘real’ […] in the
sense of producing effects on human lives and societies” (Taira 2013: 26). In its
practical application, a discursive analysis of religion often examines ‘religion’
as the connections between individual believers and practitioners, their iden-
tifications (if any) with their religions or religious institutions, and the socio-
cultural contexts in which these religious expressions and institutions operate
(Wijsen 2013c: 72; see also Fairclough 1992; Wijsen 2013a).
But for a discursive analysis of religion, what exactly is ‘discourse’? Although
there are many divergent definitions of ‘discourse’, as there are many divergent
definitions of ‘religion’, in its most general usage it refers to any form of “lan-
guage in use” or “naturally occurring,” spoken language (Baker and Ellece 2011: 30).
Michel Foucault, the main theorist of discourse who von Stuckrad employs in
his discursive analysis of religion (2014: 10), defines discourse as “practices
1 See “Discourse Analysis in Religious Studies,” a special issue of Religion (43[1]: 2013), edited by
Frans Wijsen, for one of the more recent and important collections of work applying discur-
sive analyses to the study of religion. A number of the contributors to this special issue of
Religion have also written chapters in the present volume.
The Matter of Meaning and the Meaning of Matter 53
which systematically form the objects of which they speak” (1972: 49); this is
elucidated by Vivien Burr as “a set of meanings, metaphors, representations,
images, stories, statements and so on that in some way together produce a par-
ticular version of events […] representing it to the world” (1995: 48).
In his more historically-oriented work, however, von Stuckrad undertakes a
comparative analysis of how discourses organize what is accepted as knowl-
edge in a given community over time and how, as structures of communica-
tion, they “establish, stabilize, and legitimize systems of meaning and provide
collectively shared orders of knowledge in an institutionalized social ensemble”
(2014: 5, 11).2 These statements on the value of discursive analysis are reflected
by Marcus Moberg, who argues that it can provide researchers “with a particu-
lar way of approaching how people use language and other modes of represen-
tation in order to construct particular versions of certain phenomena and
states of affairs and to make them meaningful in particular ways” (2013: 11). For
von Stuckrad, “[s]tatements, utterances, and opinions about a specific topic, sys-
tematically organized and repeatedly observable, form a discourse,” and a proper
understanding of discourse should address “the relationship among communi-
cational practices and the (re)production of systems of meaning, or orders of
knowledge, the social agents that are involved, the rules, resources, and material
conditions that underlie these processes, as well as their impact on social collec-
tives” (2014: 11). This is the more specific delineation of discourse that shall
be taken up in this chapter, particularly for the lingering trace of the ‘non-
discursive’ or ‘the material’, as invoked by von Stuckrad.
Indeed, the issue of the ‘non-discursive’, of that which falls outside of dis-
course, refers to those social processes that do not involve the use of discourse
(Baker and Ellece 2011: 76). There have been a number of debates surrounding
whether a focus on discourse elides the existence of a material, non-discursive
‘reality’ distinct from language.3 Here the meaning and applicability of the
term ‘non-discourse’ is understandably contentious: Terry Eagleton (1991: 219)
makes a distinction between discourses and practices in his discussion of the
term; Norman Fairclough (1992) maintains that discursive practices are shaped
by the non-discursive dimensions of social practices and vice versa, where
2 All italics in quotations in this chapter are in the originals, unless otherwise indicated.
3 See Jay Johnston’s contribution in chapter four of this volume, in which, in her overarching
attempt to deconstruct the various binary logics attending dominant configurations of the
study of religion, she helpfully maintains that the foundational ‘either/or’ lenses through
which religious phenomena have been viewed (such as reason/belief, mind/body, and
matter/spirit) problematically undermine the mutual imbrication of multiple and more
complex modes of knowing and being.
54 Ioannides
d iscourse and non-discourse are, therefore, in a dialectical relationship with

each other; and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Moufe (1985) see all social prac-
tices as discursive (Baker and Ellece 2011: 76). For the purposes of this chapter,
non-discourse does not refer to practices—because all instantiations of
discourse are already practices—but to materiality (as discussed further
below). One attempt to assuage the unstable relationship between discourse
and non-discourse has been Teemu Taira’s discussion of what he calls the
“extra-discursive,” an alternative reference to practices “which are not reduc-
ible to discourse” (2013: 32). Frans Wijsen, moreover, maintains that “discourse
is a practice like any other practice. In pragmatic terms, language use is not
only a way of saying things (informative), but also of doing things (performa-
tive)” (2013c: 73). Wijsen acknowledges that “there is something beyond dis-
course” (2013c: 86), engaging with Fairclough’s (2005: 923, 926) use of a ‘critical
realist’ model to advocate for knowledge constructed from the socio-cognitive
reality of causal structures that underlie patterns of actual and empirically
available discursive ‘events’ (Curtis 2014: 1758). Michael Bergunder, further-
more, asserts that discourses “should be understood as social practices having
material effects and are not to be misunderstood as something purely intel-
lectual or pertaining to ideas” (2014: 263).
For von Stuckrad, the most effective way in which to highlight the impor-
tance of both language and “the materiality of discursive structures” (2014: 3)
in the application of a discursive research perspective to the study of religion
is by employing Foucault’s theory of the ‘dispositive’ (le dispositif). According
to Siegfried Jäger and Florentine Maier, ‘dispositives’ can be understood as “the
synthesis of discursive practices (i.e. speaking and thinking on the basis of
knowledge), non-discursive practices (i.e. acting on the basis of knowledge)
and materializations (i.e. the material products of acting on the basis of knowl-
edge)” (2009: 35). For von Stuckrad, the dispositive—“often translated as
‘device,’ ‘deployment,’ or ‘apparatus’”—is a concept that “moves beyond the
analysis of discursive practices and materializations,” and is understood as “the
material, practical, social, cognitive, or normative ‘infrastructure’ in which a
d iscourse develops” (2014: 11). Von Stuckrad’s approach to such a ‘dispositive’
discursive analysis
argues that everything we perceive, experience, and feel, but also the way
we act, is structurally intertwined with socially constructed forms of
approved and objectified knowledge […] We do not have an unmediated
access to the world an sich, even though the ‘robustness’ of its material
quality limits the spectrum of interpretation. Knowledge of the world is
not a neutral understanding but the cultural response to symbolic systems
that are provided by the social environment. These symbolic systems are
typically produced, legitimized, communicated, and transformed as dis-
courses. Discourse analysis, from the perspective of the sociology of
knowledge, aims at reconstructing the processes of social construction,
objectification, communication, and legitimization of meaning structures.
What is regarded as legitimate knowledge in a given society is generated
on the level of institutions, organizations, or collective actors.
2014: 4
Certain socio-cultural—in this case, socio-culturally deemed ‘religious’—

practices and procedures are discussed here as materializations of discourse
which, in turn, “stabilize and legitimize the discursive assumptions that have
made them possible. By so doing, discursive structures steer the attribution of
meaning to things and establish shared assumptions about accepted and unac-
cepted knowledge” (von Stuckrad 2014: 9). Contrary to Gustavo Benavides’ sim-
plistic critique, here there is not “a lack of concern with that which may exist
beyond discourse” (2010: 210). What is present, however, is the acknowledge-
ment of the constitutive, constructive nature of discourse.
Following the discussions of discourse and its place and role in society pre-
viously undertaken by Fairclough (1992) as well as Jonathan Potter and
Margaret Wetherell (1992), discourse is thought to be not only linguistically
representative but also constitutive of (our) reality. Discourse “constructs
social reality and relationships” (Hjelm 2011: 135) and often constitutes reality
by attributing socio-cultural meanings to our identities, relationships, and rel-
evant knowledges.4 This is the idea of social constructionism; to be sure, most
understandings of discourse are informed by social-constructionist epistemol-
ogies (Burr 1995; Gergen 1999).5 According to von Stuckrad, discourses “have
no ontological status other than being analytical categories that the analyst of
cultural processes constructs to serve her or his interpretive goal” (2013: 16); a
discourse-historical approach to knowledge about religion is, therefore, funda-
mentally constructionist.
In his methodological discussion of the discursive study of religion, how-
ever, Titus Hjelm invokes a distinction between ‘constructionist’ and ‘critical’
4 It is worth noting Hjelm’s more expanded definition of discourse: “Discourse is a way of

speech (or an image) that does not simply reflect or represent social entities and relations,
but constructs or ‘constitutes’ them. When language is conceived in terms of discourse it is
seen as having a function, that is, ‘things are done with words’” (2011: 149).
5 Wijsen, however, states that all forms of discourse analysis are “based on social construction-
ism in one way or another” (2013b: 1; see also Moberg 2013).
56 Ioannides
approaches to discourse analysis (2011: 140). Constructionist approaches, as

noted above, treat discourses as constructing social reality, whilst critical
approaches examine “the dynamics of power, knowledge, and ideology that
surround discursive processes” (Phillips and Hardy 2002: 20). In so doing, the
latter approach “acknowledges that there is a reality—physical and social—
outside of discourse that is reproduced and changed discursively” (Hjelm
2011: 140).6 Although any distinction between constructionist and critical
approaches to discourse should be viewed as malleable, since both view dis-
course as nevertheless constitutive of some reality, Hjelm’s discussion of the
constructionist dismissal of a non-discursive social, yet physical and thus
material reality, bears further examination.
Benavides states that “[a]llegations about socially constructed worlds are
willfully blind to the fact that we humans function as organisms in a physical
world with which we have coevolved, but which does not behave according to
our incantations” (2010: 211). Bracketing for the moment the veiled anthropo-
centrism of such a statement, most social constructionists do not “reject the
existence of a material reality outside language” (Moberg 2013: 8).7 For Taira
(2013: 31 note 8), a discursive study of religion “does not have to be against” a
‘non-reductively materialist’ study of religion (such as that of Vásquez 2011).
The implication, however, is that although a discursive study of religion does
not have to be against a more materialist approach to religion, it nevertheless
can be. Such a notion is reiterated by Kennet Granholm, who maintains that
discourse is “not partially constitutive, but thoroughly constitutive”

(Potter and Wetherell 1992: 62), and that “there is no possibility of agency
or reality outside of the discursive practices that give those terms the
intelligibility that they have” (Butler 2006 [1990]: 202). While the quote
6 Elsewhere, Hjelm characterizes critical discourse analysis (cda) as “decidedly ‘materialist’”

and argues that, from a Marxian perspective, it “sees discourse in dialectical interaction with
broader social formations that on the one hand constrain discourse but on the other are also
changed by discourse” (2014: 859; see also Hjelm’s argument in chapter one of this volume).
Hjelm here supports Fairclough’s (1992) view of the dialectical relationship between discur-
sive and non-discursive practices (see above).
7 According to Jäger and Maier, discourse “is a material reality of its own. It is neither ‘much
ado about nothing,’ nor a distortion, nor a lie about reality. This characterization of discourse
as material reality implies that discourse theory is a materialist theory. Contrary to a com-
mon misconception, probably based on the fact that discourse analysis deals with language,
discourse theory is not an idealist theory. Discourse theory deals with material realities, not
with ‘mere’ ideas. Discourses may be conceptualized as societal means of production.
Discourses are not ‘mere ideology’; they produce subjects and reality” (2009: 37).
from Judith Butler might be taken as a denial of materiality, it simply

means that “phenomena only gain meaning through discourse” (Jørgensen
and Phillips 2000: 104. Cf. Potter and Wetherell 1992: 65). In short, while
the ‘prediscursive’ might exist, we can only access it through discourse.
2013: 48
Regardless of the fact that, as a discourse, we encounter ‘religion’ as a “real,

existing, materialised phenomenon that profoundly structures the social”
(Bergunder 2014: 269), here we see that discursive analysts of religion display
little interest in dismantling the problematic dichotomy of discourse and non-
discourse, language and materiality. They do not undertake an in-depth analy-
sis of the materiality of the materialization of discourse in addition to an
in-depth analysis of discourse itself, which, for these scholars, just happens to
be materialized.8 In the attempts made by the scholars above to better clarify
the relationship—dialectical or otherwise—between discourse and materiality,9
we can see the challenge of affirming the complexities whereby “discursive
and material forms are inextricable yet irreducible” and whereby discursive and
8 This is also the case for critics of discourse analysis as it is employed in the study of religion,
such as Benavides (2010), who, ironically, come to stabilize a binary of discourse-vs.-matter in
their work (which is then reproduced by those defending their discursive analyses against
such criticisms).
9 The concerns about language’s absent materiality in the work of discourse-analytical schol-
ars of religion attempting to assuage presumed critiques of the dematerialization of lan-
guage, and who thereby concretize the problematic binary of the discursive and the material,
are not a little misplaced. Mel Chen provides a powerful corrective here: “Language […] is
certainly material. For humans and others, spoken and signed speech can involve the tongue,
vocal tract, breath, lips, hands, eyes, and shoulders. It is a corporeal, sensual, embodied act. It
is, by definition, animated. But in spite of, or because of, the so-called linguistic turn (which
occurred outside of the social-science discipline of linguistics, largely in the humanities) and
the influence of poststructuralist thought, language in theory has in many ways steadily
become bleached of its quality to be anything but referential, or structural, or performative.
Some attempts at theorizing language have been labeled shallow ‘linguisticisms’ that fail to
recognize, or include, the vast materialities that set up the conditions under which language
might even begin to be spoken. As Judith Butler [1993: 8] has stated, ‘the point has never been
that “everything is discursively constructed”; that point, when and where it is made, belongs
to a kind of discursive monism or linguisticism that refuses the constitutive force of exclu-
sion, erasure, violent foreclosure, abjection, and its disruptive return within the very terms of
discursive legitimacy’” (2012: 53). Matthew Engelke also maintains that understanding reli-
gion in relation to materiality “necessarily includes a consideration of religious things, and
also of actions and words, which are material no matter how quickly they pass from sight or
sound or dissipate into the air” (2012: 209).
58 Ioannides
material structures “are simultaneously over- and underdetermined” (Coole

and Frost 2010b: 27).
For those religio-discursive analysts such as von Stuckrad (2014), Moberg (2013),
Taira (2013), Granholm (2013), Wijsen (2013c), and Hjelm (2011; 2014), the impor-
tance of materiality is not denied; but in arguing for the partially or thoroughly
constitutive nature of discourse in the construction of socio-cultural reality, albeit
a ‘materially real’ reality, the discursive and materially constitutive nature of lan-
guage and materiality is potentially elided. These scholars have wholeheartedly
embraced one aspect of this dichotomy to the point of neglecting, in varying
degrees, an engagement with the other. It is the argument of this chapter that
discourse and materiality are mutually constitutive; one does not precede and/or
exist in separation from the other. In an effort to rectify this imbalance, we now
turn to the work of feminist philosopher and particle physicist Karen Barad, who
attempts to discuss and reaffirm not only discourse’s materialization, but also
matter’s materialization (and the materiality of matter).
Matters of Matter
In Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of

Matter and Meaning (2007), Karen Barad reconceptualizes matter, discourse,
and agency through an innovative theorization of science and philosophy,
knowledge and being, matter and meaning. Drawing upon the formative
‘philosophy-physics’ of Niels Bohr, as well as feminist theories of performative
discursivity and science-studies theories of realism, Barad provides a striking
articulation of matter as “a dynamic and shifting entanglement of relations”
rather than a “property of things” (2007: 35). Here, ‘things’ incorporates the
object(s) of discourse.
Indeed, in order rethink the agency of materiality, Barad proposes ‘agential
realism’ as an epistemological-ontological—or onto-epistemological10—
framework to better understand the role of the material and/with the discur-
sive in socio-material practices, aiming to move such considerations beyond
the debates that pit constructionism against realism, nature against culture,
agency against structure, and idealism against materialism (2007: 26, 42). It is,
of course, apposite in a collection on discourse analysis to consider for a
10 ‘Onto-epistemological’ is Barad’s neologism marking the inseparability of ontology and

epistemology, the problematizing of the traditional Western philosophical partitioning of
ontology and epistemology, and the importance of highlighting “the study of practices of
knowing in being” (2007: 185; see also Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2011).
moment that scholars in the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse

(skad) argue for the correspondence between realism and constructionism;
Reiner Keller, for instance, maintains that the discourse research perspective
that finds its origins in the sociology of knowledge theory of Peter Berger and
Thomas Luckmann (1967) is “based on the assumption that everything we per-
ceive, experience, sense is mediated through socially constructed and typified
knowledge (e.g. schemata of meanings, interpretations and actions)—a
knowledge, that is, to varying degrees, recognized as legitimate and ‘objective.’
We have no direct access to the world per se, even when its material quality sets
up obstacles before us and confronts us with problems of interpretation” (2013:
61). This is also the argument of the discourse analysts examined above, who,
employing critical realist insights in their work (Fairclough 2005: 923, 926; see
also Curtis 2014: 1758), posit that knowledge is constructed from the reality of
causal structures underlying patterns of empirically available discursive
objects. For Barad, however, these approaches involve problematic, represen-
tationalist assumptions that there are separately existing discursive and non-
discursive objects in a causatively unidirectional relationship, pre-existing
their acting upon one another.
What is labeled instead as an agential realism is marked for Barad by
its performativity, presenting an alternative to social constructionist and
representationalist epistemologies, changing the focus “from questions of
correspondence between descriptions and reality (e.g. do they mirror nature
or culture?) to matters of practices or doings or actions” (2007: 28). Repre
sentationalism claims that “there are representations, on the one hand, and
ontologically separate entities awaiting representation, on the other” (Barad
2007: 49). It is the belief “that representations serve a mediating function
between knower and known,” one that has often figured matter as passive,
mute, and immutable, in need of the forceful and materializing externality of
culture, history, and discourse (Barad 2007: 133). Integral to Barad’s framework
of agential realism is the notion of ‘intra-action’, a neologism signifying “the
mutual constitution of entangled agencies” (2007: 33). Barad maintains that
in contrast to the usual ‘interaction,’ which assumes that there are sepa-
rate individual agencies that precede their interaction, the notion of
intra-action recognizes that distinct agencies do not precede, but rather
emerge through, their intra-action. It is important to note that the ‘dis-
tinct’ agencies are only distinct in a relational, not an absolute sense, that
is, agencies are only distinct in relation to their mutual entanglement; they
don’t exist as individual elements.
2007: 33
60 Ioannides
Such an approach to the relationship between discourse and what some of the
aforementioned discourse analysts have termed non-discourse, conceived not
as ‘practices’ but as matter, is extremely useful for the way in which it problema-
tizes the nature of the causal relationship between the two.11 Instead of the figu-
ration of discourse and materiality as separately bounded individual objects
pre-existing their relation, as per the argument of the various religio-discursive
analysts examined above, discourse and materiality are in agential intra-
action—mutually constitutive, imbricated, and indissociable. Thus, one should
not speak of discourse and/or materiality (or ‘non-discourse’), but rather of the
discursive-material (or the material-discursive). Nothing exists independently;
nothing precedes relations. Barad attempts to show how “agential realism’s
reconceptualization of the nature of matter and discursive practices provides a
means for taking account of the productive nature of natural as well as cultural
forces in the differential materialization of nonhuman as well as human bodies”
(2007: 34). This avoids the privileging of discursive over material concerns via
the ineffectual binarization of both. For Barad, sidestepping the problematic
issue of uncritically equating (anthropocentric) agency with things like ‘will’
and ‘intention’, matter has agency as a congealing of agency: “Matter is produced
and productive, generated and generative” (2007: 137).
In Barad’s account,
discursive practices are not human-based activities but specific material

(re)configurings of the world through which boundaries, properties, and
meanings are differentially enacted. And matter is not a fixed essence;
rather, matter is substance in its intra-active becoming […] Discursive
practices and material phenomena do not stand in a relationship of
externality to each other; the material and the discursive are mutually
implicated in the dynamics of intra-activity. In an agential realist account,
performativity is understood not as iterative citationality (Butler) but as
11 For Barad, this more rigorous understanding of how discursive practices are related to the
material world “is a significant result with far-reaching consequences for grasping
and attending to the political possibilities for change, the responsible practice of science,
and the responsible education of scientists, among other important shifts” (2007: 34).
Indeed, Barad’s work ultimately seeks to rework insights from quantum physics to rede-
fine ethics and ethical response-ability as “intra-acting from within and as part of the
world in its becoming” (2007: 396). Barad not only postulates an ‘onto-epistemology’ of
dynamic and processual intra-activity, but also an ‘ethico-onto-epistemology’—an appre-
ciation of the entanglement of ethics, knowing, and being—“since each intra-action mat-
ters, since the possibilities for what the world may become call out in the pause that
precedes each breath before a moment comes into being and the world is remade again,
because the becoming of the world is a deeply ethical matter” (2007: 185).
iterative intra-activity. Intra-actions are agentive, and changes in the

apparatuses of bodily production matter for ontological as well as episte-
mological and ethical reasons.
2007: 183–84
It is true that a number of the religio-discursive analysts discussed in the previ-

ous section invoke performativity in their explanation of matters of discourse
(Hjelm 2011: 149; Wijsen 2013c: 73), but these scholars use performativity to bol-
ster the ‘doing things’ of words at the expense of the ‘doing things’ of material-
ity. In contrast, Barad postulates “a nonrepresentationalist form of realism that
is based on an ontology that does not take for granted the existence of ‘words’
and ‘things’ and an epistemology that does not subscribe to a notion of truth
based on their correct correspondence” (2007: 56). To reiterate, we must move
away from representationalism toward an agential realist, performative under-
standing of matter-discourse that discusses relational intra-action and elides
certain privileging binarizations. Overall, “materialization is not the end prod-
uct or simply a succession of intermediary effects of purely discursive prac-
tices. Materiality itself is a factor in materialization” (Barad 2007: 180).
For Barad, Foucault’s work is useful here for his point “in moving away from
questions of linguistic representation and focusing instead on the constitutive
aspects of discursive practices in their materiality” (2007: 57). Foucault’s (1972;
1980) is an analytic of power, in which he positions and seeks to examine the
body as “the locus of productive forces, the site where the large-scale organiza-
tion of power lines up with local practices” (Barad 2008: 127). He understands
the role of discourse in materiality, but, nevertheless, he contentiously excludes
the agential and constitutive aspects of material practices in their materiality.
Barad finds that Foucault focuses solely on the importance of socio-historical
forces to account for the inscriptive processes of materialization, neglecting the
influence of ‘natural’ and other entangled material-discursive forces (2007: 66).
Matter is therefore reinscribed as the passive product of the materializations of
sociality; matter and other non-social factors are not given the agency they are
due in the materializations of materiality and sociality, which are always-
already onto-epistemologically entangled. Differently expressed, matter is not
given the agency it is due in constitutions of ‘phenomena’ (see Hinton 2013: 175).
In her work, Barad speaks of ‘phenomena’ as entangled material agencies, as
“matterings” produced through “complex agential intra-actions of multiple
material discursive practices” (2007: 140).12 As has been attested, “matter refers
12 Barad maintains that in an agential realist onto-epistemology, “the primary ontological units
are not ‘things’ but phenomena—dynamic topological reconfigurings/entanglements/
relationalities/(re)articulations of the world. And the primary semantic units are not
62 Ioannides
to the materiality and materialization of phenomena, not to an assumed inher-

ent, fixed property of abstract, independently existing objects” (Barad 2007:
210). Foucault problematically postulates the latter vis-à-vis discourse and its
relationship to materiality. Barad elaborates as follows:
It is crucial to understand that in Foucault’s account discursive practices

are not the same thing as speech acts or linguistic statements. Discursive
practices are the material conditions that define what counts as mean-
ingful statements. However, Foucault is not clear about the material
nature of discursive practices. In fact, criticism of Foucault’s analytics of
power and his theory of discourse often centers on his failure to theorize
the relationship between discursive and nondiscursive practices. The
closest that Foucault comes to explicating this crucial relationship
between discursive and nondiscursive practices is through his notion of
dispositif, usually translated as apparatus [or transliterated as ‘disposi-
tive’]. Foucault explains that dispositif is “a thoroughly heterogeneous
ensemble consisting of discourses, institutions, architectural forms, regu-
latory decisions, laws, administrative measures, scientific statements,
philosophical, moral and philanthropic propositions—in short, the said
as much as the unsaid” (Foucault 1980, 194). But this list does not consti-
tute a positive statement about the relationship between the ‘said and
the unsaid’.
2007: 63
It is important to bear in mind von Stuckrad’s (2014: 11) treatment of the dis-
positive in his own discursive analysis of religion, in which he—according to
Barad’s discussion of Foucault, problematically—argues for the discursive for-
mation of the dispositive as a categorical structure preceding and placed over
‘reality’ (envisaged as material) by differing bodies of knowledge in order to
comprehend it (see Bolt 2013: 4). Here discourse constitutes materiality; matter
less so.
This pointed argument on matter and discourse, and critiques of previous
figurations of the two, finds its footing in Barad’s engagement with the work of
Judith Butler. In Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993),
Butler challenges feminists to engage with the notion of matter, albeit the
‘words’ but material-discursive practices through which (ontic and semantic) boundar-
ies are constituted. This dynamism is agency. Agency is not an attribute but the ongoing
reconfigurings of the world. The universe is agential intra-activity in its becoming”
(2007: 141).
atter of discourse and textuality. Matter, for Butler, is “fully sedimented with
m
discourses on sex and sexuality that prefigure and constrain the uses to which
that term can be put” (1993: 29). Butler instead proposes that we understand
matter as a “process of materialization that stabilizes over time to produce the
effect of boundary, fixity, and surface we call matter,” and explains that her claim
that “matter is always materialized has […] to be thought in relation to the
productive and, indeed, materializing effects of regulatory practices in the
Foucaultian sense” (1993: 9–10). Barad acknowledges that, as an attempt to
expand on the insights of Foucault, Butler here “emphasizes that the existence
of a constitutive outside […] marks the divergence of her theory from social
constructivism [constructionism]: there is indeed an outside to discourse, but
not an absolute outside” (2007: 64).
For Barad, however, “it is not at all clear that Butler succeeds in bringing the
discursive and the material into closer proximity. The gap that remains in
Foucault’s theory seems to leave a question mark on Butler’s ability to spell out
how it is that ‘the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse pro-
duces the effects that it names’ [1993: 2] can account for the matter of sexed
bodies” (2007: 64). For Butler, matter can only be accessed via discourse, epis-
temologized (but not ontologized) through the conceptual schemes of lan-
guage and signification. Reliant on Foucault’s notion of discourse, the material
nature of discursive practices remains unaddressed; “while Butler correctly
calls for the recognition of matter’s historicity [and constitutive properties
through the agency of discourse], ironically, she seems to assume that it is ulti-
mately derived (yet again) from the agency of language or culture” (Barad 2007:
64). Butler’s theory “ultimately reinscribes matter as a passive product of dis-
cursive practices rather than as an active agent participating in the very pro-
cess of materialization” (Barad 2007: 151). As with the various religio-discursive
analysts examined above, Butler, through the insights of Barad, fails to recog-
nize matter as dynamic.
To account for matter’s dynamism, Barad—following on from her initial
theorizations of representationalism and constructionism, performativity and
intra-action, matter and discourse—turns to Bohr’s work in quantum physics,
particularly his attempts to understand the processes of scientific enquiry in a
way that attests to “the inseparability of objects and the agencies of observa-
tion” (Hinton 2013: 176); the nature of reality depends on how it is observed and
measured. Through the insights of quantum mechanics (insights not detailed
here; for a summary, see Chiew 2014), Barad “unfolds a certain generosity of
matter that is unable to be properly separated, spatially or temporally, from its
cultural scaffolding or the processes in which it is involved, to suggest that mat-
ter is agentive and (re)productive in its dynamic iterations” (Hinton 2013: 176).
64 Ioannides
She shifts the relations between matter, materiality, and language by abandon-
ing certain presumptions about “linguisticality” and theorizing the intra-action
of the observer, the observed, and the observing instruments, all of which are
agential (Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2012: 108).
I am aware that an argument for the irreducibility of materiality in the
materialization and coded signification of reality is an argument for the irre-
ducibility of materiality using discourse, within discourse. This, however, does
not mean that we can therefore understand matter as unmediated; nor does it
follow, in line with my assertions throughout this chapter, that we can then
assume matter to be a passive product of discourse and discursive practices.
Barad shows us that “matter and the social, bodies and discourse are not pre-
existing entities which work on each other from an absolute outside, each con-
fined to their own circumscribed realm, but are an entanglement, where
bodies are materialized as matter-and-the-social, as biology-and-discourse.
They do not precede their meeting, but are performative configurations or
materializations of the world” (Davis 2014: 63–4). Indeed, a ‘Baradian’ under-
standing of matter-discourse13 informs a ‘new materialist’, critical-theoretical,
interdisciplinary (re-)turn toward engaging ‘the material’ in its heterogeneous
agencies and performative vitalities.14 Combined with the study of religion, it
can proffer some compelling insights.
Toward a Material-Discursive, ‘New Materialist’ Study of Religion
According to Barad, the proposed framework of a performative and ‘post-

humanist’15 agential realism “advances a new materialist understanding of
13 “Matter is always already open, heterogeneous, noncontemporaneous with itself. Matter

is always shifting, reconfiguring, re-differentiating itself […] Matter is never settled but is
agentive and continually opens itself up to a variety of possible and impossible reconfig-
urings […] Nature is not mute, and culture the articulate one” (Barad 2010: 268 note 11).
14 Work that has been identified with new materialism has had the most impact in the
spheres of cultural studies, feminist theory, political science, ecology, and the arts. For
recent compendiums of new materialist scholarship, see Alaimo and Hekman (2008);
Coole and Frost (2010a); Dolphijn and van der Tuin (2012); Barrett and Bolt (2013); and
Iovino and Oppermann (2014).
15 ‘Posthumanist’ is used to designate Barad’s critical recognition of the important role that
nonhumans play in material-discursive practices. Beyond this, Barad’s use of ‘posthu-
manism’ “marks a refusal to take the distinction between ‘human’ and ‘nonhuman’ for
granted, and to found analyses on this presumably fixed and inherent set of categories.
Any such hardwiring precludes a genealogical investigation into the practices through
natural-cultural practices” (2007: 226). The issue of materiality in Barad’s

work is “rethought as a contingent and contested, constrained but not fully
determined, process of iterative intra-activity through which material-dis-
cursive practices come to matter, rather than as mere brute positivity or
some purified notion of the economic,” as might be found in historical
materialism (2007: 237). Key to such a new materialist paradigm is, to be
sure, an emphasis on reconceptualizing and reaffirming the (Baradian)
material-discursive, or what Donna Haraway (1988), one of Barad’s main
interlocutors, terms the ‘material-semiotic’. New materialism does not “dis-
card signification” (Dolphijn and van der Tuin 2012: 110).16 Instead, through
its defining features of ‘immanent’ thinking and non-linearity, inspired by
the work of early proponents of new materialism Manuel De Landa (2000)
and Rosi Braidotti (2002; 2006), new materialism “points at a generative
matter, which is a concept that does not capture matter-as-opposed-to-
signification, but captures mattering as simultaneously material and repre-
sentational” (van der Tuin and Dolphijn 2010: 155). New materialism
postulates that in seeing only discursive (and not material) materialization
as agential, a linearly causative relation is maintained between nature and
culture, materiality and ideality, matter and language (as argued above),
with the latter of each pair acting upon the former. But if it is the case that
matter is “active and self-creative”, then the relations between discourse
and materiality are not unidirectional (Coleman 2014: 35).17
which ‘humans’ and ‘nonhumans’ are delineated and differentially constituted. A posthu-
manist performative account worth its salt must also avoid cementing the nature-culture
dichotomy into its foundations, thereby enabling a genealogical analysis of how these
crucial distinctions are materially and discursively produced” (2007: 32). Here Peta Hinton
makes the salient remark that, for Barad, the “symbolic dexterity that culture, knowledge,
and representation enjoy in their immunity against the mute prescriptions of matter
also underscores certain anthropocentric commitments of representationalism that are
bound to human exceptionalism; the potential dynamism of matter is lost, and a human
subject is reinstalled as the interlocutor of nature’s unthinking actions” (2013: 174).
16 See Ahmed (2008) for a critique of new materialism as applied to gender studies and
feminist theory and the argument that it does, indeed, discard signification.
17 Again, Barad says it best: “[M]ateriality is discursive (i.e., material phenomena are insepa-
rable from the apparatuses of bodily production; matter emerges out of, and includes
as part of its being, the ongoing reconfiguring of boundaries), just as discursive practices
are always already material (i.e., they are ongoing material (re)configurings of the world).
Discursive practices and material phenomena do not stand in a relationship of external-
ity to each other; rather, the material and the discursive are mutually implicated in the
dynamics of intra-activity. The relationship between the material and the discursive is
one of mutual entailment. Neither discursive practices nor material phenomena are
66 Ioannides
Samantha Frost maintains that a new materialist framework examines

how “culture and biology have reciprocal agentive effects upon one another”;
new materialism thus “relinquish[es] the unidirectional model of causation
in which either culture or biology is determinative and instead […] adopt[s]
a model in which causation is conceived as complex, recursive, and multi-
linear” (2011: 71). New materialism urges us to contemplate how, through “co-
merging interactions,” matter becomes a text “where dynamics of ‘diffuse’
agency and non-linear causality are inscribed and produced” (Iovino and
Oppermann 2012: 89–90; see also Cohen 2015: 161). Work that includes, for
instance, Haraway’s (1988; 1991) feminist dismantling of the binary of nature
and culture in terms of ‘naturecultures’ and ‘material-semiosis’; Bruno
Latour’s (1993) ‘hybrids’; Jane Bennett’s (2010) ‘vibrant matter’; Stacy Alaimo’s
(2010) ‘transcorporeality’; Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s (1987) ‘assem-
blages’ of objects and affects; and, of course, Barad’s intra-acting agential
realism, imagines matter as “an excess, force, vitality, relationality, or differ-
ence that renders matter active, self-creative, productive, unpredictable”
(Coole and Frost 2010b: 9; Chen 2012: 5). Rethinking the matter-discourse
and human-nonhuman relationship, and questioning the valency of only
one aspect of these dichotomies within some current configurations of this
relationship, new materialists consider the capacity for agency far more
complexly than usual.18 Materialities-discursivities form and emerge “within
relational fields,” bodies compose “their natural environment in ways that
are corporeally meaningful for them,” and human and nonhuman subjectivi-
ties constitute themselves as “open series of capacities or potencies that
emerge hazardously and ambiguously within a multitude of organic and
social processes” (Coole and Frost 2010b: 10).
As I have argued elsewhere (Ioannides 2013), a new materialist theoretical
approach to the study of religion would here engage with the non-reductive
productivity of materiality and discursivity out of which religious relations
emerge as affective and agential mediations. The way in which matter is recon-
ceptualized as “vibrant, vital, energetic, [and] lively” (Bennett 2010: 112) in new
materialism helps scholars attempt to grasp the implications of a material and
discursive—material-discursive—religious approach to the analysis of religion.
ontologically or epistemologically prior. Neither can be explained in terms of the other.

Neither is reducible to the other. Neither has privileged status in determining the other.
Neither is articulated or articulable in the absence of the other; matter and meaning are
mutually articulated” (2007: 151–52).
18 In her contribution to this volume, Johnston also characterizes new materialism as a field
that ascribes an agency “to materiality that is not dependent upon the human subject as
a causal agent” (p. 81).
Engaging with this (re)materialization of religious studies recognizes that

materialities, their use, their valuation, and their appeal are not something
added to a religion and its discourses, but are rather inextricable from them
(Meyer et al. 2010: 209). In thus averring the mutually constitutive nature of
matter and discourse, the focus is on grasping how practices of religious medi-
ation affect the presence of sacral sensations through materiality and discur-
sivity (buildings, pictures, objects, rituals, textual accounts, etc.) (see Meyer
and Houtman 2012: 6). Activities such as handling objects, dressing in a par-
ticular way, attending certain events, and employing texts through ritual all
engage people in the relations and forms of sacral discursivity and materializa-
tion that constitute what is socio-culturally and materially practiced as reli-
gion (see Morgan 2010: 12).
For Manuel Vásquez (2011), an influential theorist of ‘material religion’,
affirming the importance of the co-constitution of matter and discourse in
religious studies means understanding religion in non-dualistic terms. Religion
should be analyzed according to a network of symbols, texts, beliefs, and prac-
tices. “We must recognize,” says Vásquez, that “although our experience of the
world is mediated through our discursive and nondiscursive practices, we can-
not reduce to human texts the materiality of our bodies and the world in which
and through which we live” (2011: 321–22). An additional, intra-implicated
dimension of religious studies must be bodily and material practices and the
precognitive registers of bodies and materiality (see Schaefer 2012: S186).
Vásquez (2011: 155–57), to be sure, explicitly engages with Barad’s work, arguing
that it “clears the way for a fully somatocentric theory of religion that does not
stop at the genealogical analysis of the textual, discursive, cultural, and social
components of religious experience and activity. Instead, the task is two-fold:
(1) to recover the evolutionary, ecological, and psycho-cognitive conditions for
religious life and (2) to understand the complex and diverse ways in which
these conditions interact with sociocultural dimensions” (2011: 157). Vásquez
seeks to articulate the new materialist, Baradian ways in which the self and its
surroundings intra-act and “engage with each other not as independent enti-
ties but as agents within a single material matrix of becoming” (2011: 315). He
stresses “the positivity of materiality” and its “creative vibrancy,” and hopes to
craft non-dualistic, relational ways of exploring the roles that the material-
discursive plays in practices and experiences that come to be lived as religious
(Vásquez 2012: 515–16). Vásquez’s call for scholars of religion to embrace such a
material-discursive materialism reframes religion as an “unfolding of processes
of exchange” (Koehlinger 2012: 427) between socio-cultural, material, and nat-
ural facets of human and nonhuman experience.
Graham Harvey, another scholar of material-discursive religion, also actively
engages with Barad’s thought in his recently published Food, Sex and Strangers:
68 Ioannides
Understanding Religion as Everyday Life (2013). In this work, he seeks to chal-

lenge readers to break with the conventional notion of ‘religion as belief-
system’ and to look ‘elsewhere’ for models of religion that locate the practical,
the material, the social, and the everyday in the religious. In so doing, Harvey
invokes Barad’s concept of intra-action to posit “a participative cosmos (in
which humans have co-evolved among related intra-active kin),” where matter
acts consciously and always deliberately with other matter, arguing against
(still current) conceptualizations that mistake “religion for the interior thoughts
of solitary individuals” (2013: 89). Through a study of indigenous, pagan, Christian,
and Jewish religious practices, Harvey instead argues that religion is actually
about the material-discursive practices and rituals that inform the etiquette of
relationships. Moreover, in her study of the statues of the Virgin of Alcala de
los Gazules in Spain and the Glastonbury Goddess in England, framed within
the broader examination of the material-discursive dimensions of religion,
Amy Whitehead (2013) also utilizes Barad’s explication of theories of matter-
discourse to argue for the complementarity of agency and relationality vis-à-
vis the role of materiality in certain humans’ discursive and materially
intra-active engagement with religious statues (conceived and materialized as
materialities).
In intra-actively agential realist, performative, posthumanist terms, there-
fore, religion emerges here as both the discourse-analytical understanding of
“the connections between individual believers and practitioners, their identifi-
cations (if any) with their religions or religious institutions, and the socio-
cultural contexts in which these religious expressions and institutions operate”
(see above), as well as something more than this. Indeed, it might be worth-
while to materialize and, if you will, ‘discursivize’ religion as further character-
ized by intra-active relationality and human/nonhuman participation in and
as the world emergent through agential material-discursive practices and
phenomena.
Conclusion
In accounts of matter and discourse, or of matter-discourse, no priority should

be given to either materiality or discursivity, as neither one stands ‘outside’ the
other; both are intra-actively inseparable and inseparably constitutive of/
in the world. Neither matter nor discourse precedes the emergence of the
material-discursive, and neither precedes the other in onto-epistemological
processes; relations constitute matter-discourse. When applied to the study of
religion, such a directive yields the rich insight that religions are material-discursive
practices that create and comprise the phenomena of the world. Studies of
religion as material-discursive phenomena by Vásquez (2011), Harvey (2013),
and Whitehead (2013), entangled as they are with the contributions of new
materialism and Barad’s (2007) theory of agential matter-discourse, which
allows the notion of materialization to be reworked in order to acknowledge
the more complex entanglement of discursivity and materiality in practices
and phenomena, expand on the work of the discursive analysts of religion dis-
cussed in the first section of this chapter.
Indeed, for scholars such as von Stuckrad (2014), Moberg (2013), Taira (2013),
Granholm (2013), Wijsen (2013c), and Hjelm (2011; 2014), who utilize—to vary-
ing degrees—the writings of thinkers as diverse as Foucault (1972; 1980),
Fairclough (1992; 2005; 2010), and Keller (2013), the importance of matter to the
social and material constitution of reality is not denied but is instead config-
ured as less than that of the constitutive power of discourse and discursive
practices. Discourse here prescribes epistemology, action, and representation
through its bounded ‘objectness’, separate from and pre-existing any of the
relational entanglements that may constitute reality. The work examined in
the last two sections of this chapter, however, shifts the study of religion from
such an over-determined reliance on discursively constitutive materiality and
materially constituting discourse—foregrounding matter’s dynamic entangle-
ment with/in forms of discourse and discursive representation—to a more
rigorous awareness of material-discursive onto-epistemological religious prac-
tices. Material and discursive phenomena occur and are disclosed through
their relational, mutual, intra-active co-implication, constitution, and imbrica-
tion—through matter-discourse, through the discursive-material. This is a
move that has the potential to produce a more expansive and enhanced sensi-
tivity to the affects and powers of matter and discourse in the constitution of
the always-already material-ideal world, which, of course, includes its many
diverse religiosities.
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chapter 4
Slippery and Saucy Discourse: Grappling with the

Intersection of ‘Alternate Epistemologies’ and
Discourse Analysis
Jay Johnston
The Trouble with Knowing
‘Passionate detachment’ (Kuhn 1982) requires more than acknowledged

and self-critical partiality. We are also bound to seek perspective from
those points of view, which can never be known in advance, which prom-
ise something quite extraordinary, that is, knowledge potent for con-
structing worlds less organized by axes of domination.
haraway 1991: 192
Academic work—the production and dissemination of knowledge and the

attendant tools, methods, and processes requisite to create it—has implicitly
relied on both the concept of mastery (exhibiting expertise) and the con-
comitant practice of reason. In the wake of poststructuralism, feminism and
postcolonial studies, these foundations of academic personas and practice
have been resoundingly destabilized. In short, it is now generally understood
in the humanities disciplines that academic analysis can no longer simply be
presented as a disembodied and entirely objective undertaking. Subsequently,
much effort has been directed towards identifying the biases—personal,
political, socio-cultural—that covertly and overtly direct the construction of
both the theory and practice of academic investigation. For as Michel
Foucault (1969) famously proposed, certain unspoken rules exist for any dis-
course; these rules direct what can and cannot be presented as knowledge as
well as what forms of presentation are acceptable within a given context.
These rules or conventions create limits to both forms of argument and con-
ceptual proposition.
This chapter is concerned with the boundary between what can and cannot
be presented as knowledge within the discipline of religious studies,1 particularly
1 Teun A. van Dijk refers to the study of how knowledge is “interactively managed” by any
given community as “epistemic discourse analysis” (2013: 497). Such analysis is concerned
with the modes of engagement with, and communication of knowledge through, either

Slippery and Saucy Discourse 75
with regard to studying magic, whether it be ancient forms whose residue is

left in the material records of text and object or more contemporary activities
(inclusive of healing practices) that utilize a plurality of media and invoke
non-empirical causal agents. These practices are considered askance to ‘com-
mon sense’ and academic forms of reasoning. This is not the same as claiming
that they are devoid of logic. On the contrary, there are often clear (if some-
times complex) logics directing such practices. However, from within the
framework of modern categories of epistemology, these practices do not spring
from normative forms of reason; rather, they evoke the heady and troubled
category of ‘belief’.
Historically, within the academic study of religion, these two terms have
formed a very unhelpful and reductive binary pair (reason contra belief) that
in turn has formed a foundational ‘lens’ through which religious phenomena is
viewed. This ‘either/or’ lens has consistently undermined the mutual imbrica-
tion of the two modes of knowing—an imbrication evocatively exemplified in
the work of Bruno Latour (cf. 1991; 2013). Further, this binary rendering masks
the epistemological plurality of both: there are many forms of reason and
many modes of belief. The following discussion sets out—tentatively and
experimentally—on the path towards considering how to examine, think,
theorize, and practice as an academic focused on the study of ‘magic’ without
embodying and ‘unknowingly’ reproducing such epistemological dualisms. As
is now well understood, such dualisms lay at the heart of normative subjectiv-
ity in the contemporary ‘West’, and many a scholar has been engaged in a quest
to disrupt their binary linearity over the past few decades.
This chapter is not only concerned with methodological and theoretical
approaches to magical practice, but also with how to render as conceivable
and ‘seeable’ the mutual constructions of theory–practice implicit in the prac-
tice of magic, which are also generated in academic study. As a ‘history’ of
approaches to the academic study of magic falls well outside the remit of this
chapter, suffice it to note that the examination of textual sources, in particular,
has been (until very recently) dominated by philological concerns. The work
of translating and interpreting the textual elements has governed scholarly
methods. The ‘turn’ towards concern with bodies, materiality, and agency
direct expression or various forms of implication. Van Dijk argues that sociological
approaches to knowledge have failed to adequately take account of discursive forms, espe-
cially those produced and reproduced through the media and institutions such as schools
and universities. This chapter is similarly concerned with the way in which such institutions
produce certain types of discourse; however, its focus is also on the way in which such com-
munities construct what counts as knowledge (and in what contexts) in the first place, as well
as validating specific modes of discourse for knowledge engagement and communication.
76 Johnston
(including that of the researcher) is resulting in such texts being considered

within a broader framework—one that takes into account the embodied sub-
jects who created and ‘used’ the texts, the image and design elements, and the
broader socio-cultural context in which the magic circulated and had cur-
rency. This is an academic process, involving continually developing and
informing theory and practice. No neat boundaries delineate either; rather, it
is understood that they mutually construct one another in relations of ‘simul-
taneity’. In the realm of other-than-empirical causal agents, this is inclusive of
invisible and ‘alternate’ modes of knowledge. These are also agents and effects
in this discursive field. But how can such elusive immateriality be taken into
account methodologically?
For some, the task of discourse analysis in general has been understood as a
‘way’ to critically locate and bring to conscious reflection the specific biases,
assumptions, socio-cultural foundations, and frameworks of knowledge
deemed “common” (Hjelm 2011: 142) or “implicit” (von Stuckrad 2013: 10). As
von Stuckrad (2013: 8) argues, “everything we perceive, experience and feel, but
also the very way we act, is structurally intertwined with socially constructed
forms of approved and objectified knowledge”—in short, to challenge and
reflect upon beliefs, practices, and forms of subjectivity deemed by the domi-
nant culture to be ‘natural’. Attendant to this is the recognition that ‘deviant’ or
alternative positions are similarly constructed. This includes the discourses
that construct, interpret, and render knowable perception(s). It is the latter
with which this chapter is concerned.
At first glance, such an agenda risks being dismissed, because the legitimate
criteria and practices are being ‘pushed’ towards more slippery (historically
considered dubious) knowledges. That is, accepted conventions of what counts
as valid academic knowledge are being tickled, albeit this tickling takes place
within a scholarly framework heartily employing disciplinary conventions to
make its case. Yet allowing deviant or ‘alternative’ epistemologies and world-
views into the academic arena is already a feature of the landscape. In the
guise of accepted—or indeed, touted as innovative and ‘trendy’—theory,
such concepts and approaches have developed in other disciplines, especially
cultural studies (which are now being more actively applied to religious
studies)—for example, in ‘affect theory’ and the approach of the new material-
ists. Ioannides (in Chapter 3 of this volume) provides a salient analysis of the
impact (or lack thereof) of such conceptual developments in the academic
study of religion, with particular attention to how ‘discourse’ and ‘matter’ are
constructed. As will be discussed below, those conceptualizations that do posit
radical forms of intersubjectivity and other-than-human agency that elude
mastery and reasoned knowing do so with a marked aversion to concepts of
‘religion’ or ‘the spiritual’. However, the residue of these concepts remains

potent in these secular figurations.
Slippery Discourse: Deviant Knowledges and the Sixth Sense
Esoteric, vernacular, and indigenous practices (for example, ritual, magic,

and forms of spiritual healing) rely on different orders of logic than those
tied to or emerging from empirical observation of direct cause and effect. For
example, images may not simply depict or illustrate but may be attributed
their own ontological agency; precious and semi-precious stones may be
considered to enact specific forms of protection and healing of the physical
body; the presence or appearance of specific animals or plants may be read
as portents or directives for cures and behavior; specific individuals may be
acknowledged as able to manipulate unseen yet potent forces and agencies
(whether this ability is considered innate or the result of extensive training,
or a combination of both). Although ‘Western’ self-directed spiritual prac-
tices have long been ridiculed in scholarship and in some public discourse
for their perceived superficial engagement with the traditions they adopt
and adapt (and clearly there are very real social and political issues with
unauthorized appropriation of indigenous traditions [cf. Donaldson 1999]),
such perceptions are tempered by work which, while not rejecting the
Foucauldian critiques of the New Age’s neoliberal tendencies, probes further
into the meaning-making, social forms, and conceptual appeal of these spiri-
tual practices (for example, Barcan 2011; Heelas 2008; Partridge 2004, 2005;
Sutcliffe and Gilhus 2014).
In both ancient and contemporary practices, an individual—magician,
healer, ritualist, shaman, etc.—is credited with specific skills requisite for the
apprehension and direction of metaphysical forces. The conceptualization of
these forces, the actual ritual activities, and the rendering of the ‘skills’ under-
stood to apprehend and activate them are all reliant on dominant discourses
for their formation. Therefore, it is not just that these modes of knowing are
often presented as antithetical to dominant discourses, but also that the posit-
ing of their very existence and efficacy—embodied or manifest in symbolic or
literary systems—is profoundly intertwined with normative conventions. As
von Stuckrad argues, “the power of discursive structures clearly limits the ways
in which scholars can construct meaningful narratives” (2014: 182). Recognizing
these limits and the dominant tropes of any specific discourse is crucial to its
analysis. The following discussion considers two very different examples of
such discursive construction.
78 Johnston
A variety of terms are employed to designate ‘alternate’ modes of percep-

tion in ‘Western’ culture. These have predominantly been rendered as a ‘sixth
sense’ or the ‘second sight’ (perhaps also reflecting a cultural pre-occupation
with counting and quantification), as mystical knowledge (a particularly
amorphous category, but no less socio-culturally constructed), or as intuition.
In modern understanding, the boundary lines between ‘intuitive’ knowledge,
mystical experience, and clairvoyant abilities is an understandably nebulous
and slippery one (constructed differently in different socio-cultural con-
texts). While acknowledging the imprecise nature of this nomenclature, it is
the construction of intuition that will be the specific focus of the following
discussion.
Intuition is often designated as either a deeply embodied or a radically dis-
embodied form of knowledge—although paradoxically the disembodied form
is often tied to concepts of a spiritual body (especially the subtle body) or
direct connection with a divine agent. The dominant spiritual forms found in
New Age practices understand intuition as a form of ‘gut’ knowing, implicitly
tied to the body and intimately bound up with the emotions (subsequently
presented through the lens of dominant gender stereotypes, which link a uni-
versal feminine to the emotions and intuition). Ruth Barcan’s insightful cul-
tural analysis of intuition (2009; 2011) furnishes a range of examples with
regard to intuition as an embodied knowledge via her examination of the phe-
nomenon of ‘medical intuition’ in both its spiritual and secular forms. As
Barcan (2009) recounts, some practitioners understood their knowledge as an
‘everyday intuition’ present for all individuals who wish to access it, while oth-
ers considered intuition as a form of clairvoyance—a knowledge given from
some external agent—which may or may not be available to all people. Barcan
also noted a third understanding of intuition that has emerged in nursing stud-
ies, where it is equated to expert, habitual, embodied knowledge, but notes
that none of the medical clairvoyants she interviewed understood their intu-
ition in that way. In each of these cases—whatever the understood source of
the intuitive knowledge—the individual’s physical body, their perceptive
senses, and their emotions were understood as requisite for its manifestation,
for its very capacity to be a form of knowing.
However, contemporary spiritual concepts of intuition do not always evoke
such tight interrelations with emotions and the physical flesh. The modern
Theosophical Society’s presentation of intuition as a ‘higher’ form of mind
(manas) is distinguished by claims that it is a mode of knowing untainted by
the emotions (which Theosophists both feminize and demonize). As I have
argued elsewhere (2008: 67–71) with regard to Alice A. Bailey’s ‘blue books’,
‘mind’ in this context refers to both the intellectual faculties of reason and
those of intuition. It is presented as an epistemology only available to those

who have achieved a specific level of spiritual development that requires tight
control of the emotions, which in this worldview are aligned with a spiritually
feeble material world. On the one hand, this rendering uncouples the usual
reason–intuition binary by presenting these knowledges as co-constitutive of
theosophical ‘intuition’; on the other hand, the literature re-inscribes a mind–
body dualism, with this ‘intuition’ subsumed to a reasoned disembodied mind
that is distanced from the ‘lower’ sources of knowledge understood to emanate
from physical nature, and especially from the emotions.
While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to further recount the diverse
histories of the construction of ‘intuition’; the salient point of note is that,
while dominant discourse presents intuition as a distinct ‘other’ to normative
forms of reason, one does not have to scratch the surface very hard to find
examples that undermine such simplistic binary positioning. Barcan’s work is
replete with accounts of intuition understood as a part of ‘everyday’ knowl-
edge, a lived praxis, while the theosophical presentation exemplifies intu-
ition as a valued form of knowledge inclusive of reason. These examples are
sufficient to signal that this mode of epistemology often undermines simple
mind–body binaries, and furthermore, that a positioning as ‘alternate’ may be
a misrepresentation (just as so-called ‘alternative’ health practices are now
recognized as thoroughly mainstream [Barcan 2011]). A related issue pertain-
ing to this common epistemological binary is that reason is also viewed as
singular, whereas is may be more fruitfully recognized as multiple—taking
many forms.
As with other forms of ‘rejected’ knowledge, intuition (‘alternative’ forms
of knowing) has received positive attention from advocates who make claims
for its significance and its right to be included in institutional contexts. This
has been the case especially in cultural and gender studies and creative arts
programs. These arguments often rely on highlighting difference—using the
ascribed marginal, deviant, and ‘other’ positioning for critical effect—and
often incorporate the stereotypical gendering of such modes of knowledge as
well. While respecting the validity and political importance of such argu-
ments, this chapter seeks something even more tenuous: to offset the binary
presentation entirely, even though this may dampen some of the deviant
sparkle. I attempt this in order to argue for recognition of ‘intuition’s’ under-
acknowledged presence in normative academic discourse while also attempt-
ing to more consciously develop methodological frameworks that permit
greater ‘presencing’ of such slippery knowledge (all the while acknowledging
the irony that this is attempted herein by reasoned argument). As Ruth Barcan
writes:
80 Johnston
We spend years learning how to reason, including being trained in spe-

cific forms, styles, and vocabularies of reasoning. Even so, no one, when
they reason, can be absolutely certain that their conclusions have been
derived free of the workings of habit, assumption, prejudice, cultural
limitations, or, for that matter, “intuition.” There may be no pure intu-
ition, but there is no pure reason either.
2009: 218
Therefore, discourse analysis is not only the work of identifying the norma-
tive formations of habit, prejudice, and power in the construction and repro-
duction of subjects, cultures, politics, worldviews, beliefs, and practices; it is
also the work of identifying the ways in which the very modes with which we
construct such knowledge are themselves subject to the same limitations and
forces. Such pressures similarly inhibit recognition of the irrational aspect of
reason(s)—indeed, the impurity of any epistemological mode. What counts
as ‘reason’ itself is neither static nor universal. Histories of scholarship amply
demonstrate that we can have no confidence in an enduring valency for our
own currently (and contingently) legitimized knowledges. This chapter advo-
cates for epistemological simultaneity—that is, the recognition that multiple
modes of knowing work concurrently, and furthermore, that there is an ethi-
cal imperative to develop skills in recognizing the operations of all of these
modes of thought, including non-dominant, rejected (and often ridiculed)
forms.
Saucy ‘Stuff’: Matter and Its Discontents
In esoteric traditions, as noted above, magical practitioners are often credited

with intuitive epistemological and extrasensory capacities. It is these skills
that are considered imperative to their capacity to ‘see’ and direct empirically
unverifiable phenomena—for example, intermediary spirits, spiritual forces,
subtle (or energetic) bodies. This includes agency from other–than–human
sources. These concepts of matter and the perceptive and epistemological
resources required to apprehend it are mutually interrelated, even understood
as co-constitutive (a more detailed example is discussed below).
Concern—political, social, ethical, and aesthetic—for other–than-human
forces has also preoccupied many scholars in related disciplines (including
social geography, gender studies, and critical animal studies) over the past
decade. This includes the rich scholarship on affect (for example, Sedgwick
2003; Gregg and Seigworth 2010) and what is known as new materialism
(e.g., Coole and Froste 2010; Bennett 2010). It is in the latter that I perceive
strong correlates to the conceptualization of materiality in various esoteric
traditions, including the subtle body (Samuels and Johnston 2011), and which I
put into further dialogue in this section.
Although encompassing a diversity of agendas and approaches, taken
broadly, the field of new materialism ascribes agency to materiality that is not
dependent upon the human subject as a causal agent. Ioannides (in Chapter 3
of this volume) argues for a new materialist approach in religious studies that
would emphasize matter as generative (that is, productive) and not placed in a
binary relation with signification. This application of a new materialist con-
cept of agency to the study of religious discourses considers the constitutives
of such discourses as something other than purely ideational. At the most radi-
cal edge, these arguments call for (a) new framework(s) through which to
interpret matter–discourse. In Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things
(2010: 17–18), Jane Bennett outlines a positioning of new materialist approaches
with regard to constructivism, arguing for the benefit of “cultural, linguistic, or
historical constructivism, which interprets any expression of thing-power as
an effect of culture and the play of human powers, politicizes moralistic and
oppressive appeals to ‘nature’.” However, she critiques the constructivist
agenda for its anthropomorphism, for being blind to or “obscuring” the exis-
tence of other-than-human “thing-power.” Her proposed agenda for addressing
this issue is as follows:
There is thus something to be said for moments of methodological

naiveté, for the postponement of a genealogical critique of objects. This
delay might render manifest a subsistent world of nonhuman vitality. To
“render manifest” is both to receive and to participate in the shape given
to that which is received. What is manifest arrives through humans but
not entirely because of them.
Visual materialists will thus try to linger in those moments during
which they find themselves fascinated by objects, taking them as clues to
the material vitality they share with them. This sense of a strange and
incomplete commonality with the out-side may induce vital materialists
to treat non-humans—animals, plants, earth, even artifacts and com-
modities—more carefully, more strategically, more ecologically. But how
to develop this capacity for naiveté? One tactic might be to revisit and
become temporarily infected by discredited philosophies of nature, risk-
ing, “the taint of superstition, animism, vitalism, anthropomorphism,
and other premodern attitudes.”
Bennett quoting Mitchell 2005: 149
82 Johnston
Bennett calls upon “methodological naiveté” in order to apprehend and give

proper recognition to other-than-human agency. Yet she is left floundering in
trying to conceptualize this ‘other’—the material’s own vitality. She invokes
relations of disease and contagion, noting the potential for being “infected” by
academically discredited knowledges (quoting Mitchell)—“superstition, ani-
mism, vitalism, anthropomorphism, premodern attitudes.”
This is a troubling argument (not in the sense of good, productive trouble)
for a number of reasons. The examples of “naiveté” she gives are both paternal-
istic in expression and politically and culturally inappropriate, as they denigrate
indigenous and vernacular knowledges as well as the philosophical traditions
that have formed the basis upon which more ‘trendy’, secular, and acceptable
propositions are based. An example of the latter is the vitalism of Henri Bergson,
which so clearly informs the work of Gilles Deleuze (and, of course, Deleuze
himself designated ‘intuition’ as a philosophical method). As demonstrated by
von Stuckrad (in Chapter 9 of this volume), the discourses of vitalim are a
potent source for undermining simplistic ‘religion–science’ binaries. (Deleuze
1966; Johnston 2008: 32–35). Indeed, apprehending and recognizing other-than-
human agency is an important aspect in much contemporary scholarship on
vernacular religion (Bowman and Valk 2012) and contemporary animism
(Harvey 2013), which are not taken up directly herein. Suffice it to say that the
issue is far from uncommon in the academic study of religion. Therefore, while
I champion the same call for the recognition of other-than-human agencies
that are not derivative of the human (even if they may be shared by the human)
and for matter not only to be read as a passive subject to the effects of external
agencies, including ideology and power, I do not concur with Bennett’s render-
ing of a “methodological naiveté” as requisite for their apprehension.
What is required is the recognition of the socio-cultural bias that enables
the presentation of these knowledges in such a derogatory fashion (even while
trying to ‘claim’ them), and a further recognition that a call framed in terms
such as these simply re-inscribes the dominant epistemological binary. What is
needed is both the approach outlined in the previous section, in which ‘alter-
nate’ knowledges and reason (including academic forms) are understood as
concurrent with one another in relations of varying degrees of simultaneity,
and, further, that the apprehension of other-than-human agency—‘material
vitality’—requires not naiveté but a very knowing, conscious development: an
active cultivation. This would be the practice of modes and methods of per-
ception that open the enquiring subject to apprehending alternate methodol-
ogies and the phenomena they perceive (more on this in the examples below).
Therefore, rather than view ontological materiality and other-than-human
agency as being residual, pre-Enlightenment forms of dodgy thinking, a more
creative approach would consider such knowledges as providing multiple forms

of foundational logic, upon which—in specific cultural locations—the efficacy
of matter and the agency of ‘immaterial’ forces to create, inform, or aid alter-
nate or unusual shifts in human perception is understood as a legitimate phe-
nomenon. In the realm of contemporary theory, concepts of animate matter
also pre-date the emergence of new materialism. For example, anthropologist
Christopher Tilley, while practicing a phenomenologically inspired research
methodology now known as ‘post-processural archaeology’, has for some time
been advocating for the recognition of animate (or vibrant) forms of landscape.
Regarding an archaeological project on Bodmin Moor (Cornwall), he writes:
We believe that the people of Leskernick Hill regarded the stones as ani-
mate sentient beings, the very opposite of a modernist belief system in
which the stones are regarded as inanimate objects to be exploited at
will. As animate beings, the stones became subjects rather than objects,
and possess a personality, an essence, a spiritual and moral power. […]
They contain forces exogenous to human will but forces that can none-
theless be pacified, tapped and controlled.
tilley and hamilton 2007: 225
While the beliefs of prehistoric people necessarily remain in the realm of the
impossible-to-know-for-certain (which is not to say that such conjecture is not
valid—on the contrary, it is often a valuable resource for identifying contem-
porary preoccupations and biases as well as proposing innovative interpreta-
tions and methodologies of analysis), Tilley has advocated for other-than-human
agency in his work for many years. Indeed, he presents such experience as
intersubjective, articulating how such relations affect perception and atten-
dant knowledge production: “We enter a landscape and create a subjective but
culturally bound perception of it. We also interact with the materiality of place
and the place interacts with us and affects the manner in which we perceive”
(Tilley 2004: 220). This perspective emphasizes perception and knowledge as
constructed in a relation of reciprocity, therefore acknowledging other-than-
human agency (Ingold 2012 and Hodder 2013 have made related claims). This is
not a ‘neat’ space to inhabit, not least because of the potentially political
charge of speaking for an ‘other’ (animate or inanimate). Indeed, it is the desire
to step outside of such paternalistic relations that induced the new materialist
concept of other-than-human material agency. However, the fact remains that
what is heard in dominant academic discourses are dominant academic
discourses. This work does not deny such a reality, but it argues that a produc-
tive space may be opened by paying closer attention to the intersubjective
84 Johnston
construction of perception. Such knowledge, then, is not purely mine or ours,

but is simultaneously localized, diffused, and multiple. The approach requires
acknowledging the inherently partial and incomplete nature of perception.
When considering this form of perceptive knowledge producing intersubjec-
tivity with regard to esoteric magical practices, it is useful to broaden Tilley’s
meaning to embrace landscapes physical, imaginal, and metaphysical (and
their intersections in any given worldview).
My understanding of materiality in such a context is that it is not universal,
not a ‘given’, and not wholly tied to empirical recognition, but is rather a prod-
uct of intersubjective relations, both ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’. What this would
require in actualization is a form of embodied reception that is not divorced
from reasoning but is also not wholly dependent upon it.
Therefore, rather than fear some taint or infection of “discredited” knowl-
edge in articulating relations with vibrant other-than-human matter, it is
rather a matter of accepting (in academic contexts) that perceiving multiplici-
tous agencies will require a plurality of perceptive skills and the simultaneous
confluence of different types of knowledge, leading then to the issue of how
this epistemological simultaneity is communicated to others. As an embodied
relationship, this will require attention to the manner in which one ‘looks’ at
one’s ‘objects’ of study and how the ‘objects’ of analysis look back.
Opening to Multiplicity: Speculative Steps on a Meandering Way
In an effort to actualize this call for greater recognition of ‘alternate’ episte-

mologies and their attendant materialities in academic work, including the
different modes of embodied engagement they require, two examples with be
discussed in this final section. Neither is revolutionary. The claim herein is not
that this is an entirely new mode or working method; rather, it is one that
attempts to glimpse the operations of non-normative epistemologies in nor-
mative discourse construction by being more aware of the embodied process
of enquiry and the questions being asked. It has long been acknowledged in
research methodological studies that the form and framework of investigative
questioning directly affects the results received. The questions asked—and
other research technologies—are never neutral.
‘Thing-Power’s’ Material Evidence: Heid. Inv. Kopt. 684,

“Erotic Spell of Cyprian on Antioch”
As noted in the introduction, esoteric traditions encompass many diverse
beliefs in material agency—for example, the ontology of images or the universe
being infused with energetic material substance that can be manipulated by

those with the presumed requisite knowledge, skill, or training. This first
example is drawn from a collaborative project funded by the Australian
Research Council;2 in particular it is part of the analysis of the Heidelberg
magical texts (Johnston and Gardner forthcoming 2016). This discussion
focuses on P. Heid. Inv. Kopt. 684, the “Erotic Spell of Cyprian on Antioch,” and
exemplifies an approach were the object’s capacity for having an agency of its
own is taken into account in the analysis. Therefore the object of study was
approached as one that intersected with multiple forms of discourse, not all of
which have been historically considered valid for academic study. Indeed,
allowing this non-normative knowledge a little space in the analysis lead to
greater attention being paid to the physical, empirical aspects of the book.
Dated to the eleventh century, the “Erotic Spell of Cyprian of Antioch” is an
example of what is commonly referred to as Late Antique Christian magic (see
Meyer and Smith 1994). It is a 16-page book (14.3 x 9 cm) originally published
by Friedrich Bilabel and Adolf Grohmann in 1934 (304–25), with Marvin Meyer
and Richard Smith publishing an English translation in 1994 (153–58). The text
commences by recounting a version of the legend of the repentant magician
Cyprian of Antioch (Bilabel and Grohmann 1934: 32–41). This is followed by an
invocation to the Archangel Gabriel, which is an unequivocal piece of ‘love’
magic—for example: “[fill] her heart, her soul, her spirit, and her mind with
burning desire and hot longing, with perturbation and disturbance, filling her
from the toenails of her feet to the hair of her head with desire and longing and
lust” (Meyer and Smith 1994: 155). Following this appeal for erotic assistance
are a list of ritual ingredients, understood to be selected for their associations
with particular physiology, spirit-beings, the healing of particular ailments,
and also for the psycho-physical effects they cause—for example, the capacity
to induce relaxation, sedation, stimulation, or even altered states of conscious-
ness. After this list on page 13 is found a degraded image, which is of Archangel
Gabriel if one reads the text above the head of the figure as a proper noun
identifying the figure below.
Here, a spirit–being (Archangel Gabriel) is being called upon to produce a
specific mode of interpersonal relationship, indeed to steer the course and
define the object of a women’s sexual desire. Clearly—as with practices deemed
‘magical’ more generally—this is invoking non-empirical and other-than-human
2 “The production and function of art and design elements in ancient texts and artefacts of
ritual power from Late Antiquity in the Mediterranean region.” Collaborative research proj-
ect funded by the Australian Research Council: Jay Johnston, Iain Gardner, and Julia Kindt
(Sydney); Erica Hunter (soas); and Helen Whitehouse (Oxford), 2012–2014.
86 Johnston
agency. But is there evidence for this beyond what is theoretically known (prior
to examining the text) regarding the operational aims in magic in general and
in what the text describes in this particular example?
Combined with textual and iconographic analysis of the magical handbook,
Gardner and I supplemented these traditional approaches by asking questions
about the material state of the object. We were particularly interested to know
whether its materiality could tell us something about the functionality of the
‘magic book’—in addition to it being a repository of spell formulae—and its
role in ritual. In other studies, I have been particularly focused upon whether
the positioning and location of design and image elements could provide indi-
cations of how to ‘read’ the image—whether as illustration, as diagram, or as
ontological (the spirit–being understood as presenced via the image). It is
vitally important that contemporary scopic regimes are not simply imported
into the study of this material; assumptions should not be made about the
visual literacy of the people who created and used these texts. In the case of
the “Erotic Spell of Cyprian on Antioch,” admitting a logic that accords the
image agency (other-than-human agency) enabled propositions to be devel-
oped about the book’s function.
The first basic observation about the ‘magic book’ was that it was in very
good condition for material of that type, with the exception of two pages:
pages 12 and 13. These pages at the end of the codex contacted one another
when the book was closed. The faded image is on page 13, directly following
the list of ritual ingredients. This specific degradation of material led us to
consider whether this reflected specific use for these particular pages.
Indeed, given the image’s location at the end of the handbook, directly after
the invocation text and list of ritual ingredients, we proposed that the dam-
age was potentially the result of ritual practice that directly used the image—
specifically, that Archangel Gabriel’s agency was activated by the ritual
practitioner via some type of physical/material contact. The damage on page
12 (substantially on the right-hand side) could have been caused by residual
material (oil, etc.) left on the image seeping onto the facing page when the
book was closed and not in use (this is also discussed in Johnston and
Gardner, forthcoming).
While it is impossible to precisely reconstruct how the image was used, it
seems plausible that it was viewed as an actant (with other-than-human
agency) in some way rather than as a passive illustration. It could perhaps have
been repetitively oiled or rubbed, pressed against the ritual subject, or anointed
with ritual ingredients. From such a perspective, the ‘thing-power’ of the object
was not innate but was activated in specific contexts and by specific people.
Additionally, the book is not something that is simply read (even by select
s pecialists) but itself becomes a locus of ritual activity, the image–page itself
used in tactile transference of magical efficacy. Therefore, rather than viewing
the magical handbook as merely a repository of instructions, a manual to
direct the action of the magician, the book itself needs to be viewed as a player
(actant) in the ritual.
To draw such a conclusion, two perspectives were crucial: firstly, the under-
standing that such objects and their contents were understood to exist within
a worldview where action-at-a-distance and other-than-human agency were
considered entirely plausible phenomena; secondly, rather than imposing con-
temporary viewpoints about the role and use of books, careful attention was
paid to the materiality of the object itself. This enabled conjectures to be devel-
oped about how it was used. Considering the physical state of the object
enabled a more subtle, illusive materiality—that of spirit–being and magical
efficacy—to become evident. Here we glimpsed the object’s own vitality, but a
methodological “naiveté” was not required to elicit it. Rather, it required an
elongated process of looking, which was aware of contemporary scopic expec-
tations of ‘the book’ and willing to ask questions about these normative
assumptions.
Water Divining and Spiritual Healing: Intuitive Knowledge’s

Material Evidence
I cleaned the energy from the field. I found a spot that I felt was especially
vulnerable, and to my amazement, the universe was telling me that to
solve this problem I had to eat a bit of soil from the land. I had never done
anything like that before, and will probably never do it again, but I took
the story through my body.
cassidy 2012: 130
This second example is a discursive consideration of the autobiography of the

contemporary healer and diviner Joe Cassidy, especially his conceptualization
of intuition and other-than-human agency. This did not require the research-
er’s active cultivation of intuitive states or knowledges, but it did require the
suspension of disbelief and the cultivation of an attitude of openness towards
the validity of alternate knowledges that was not an uncritical, romantic cele-
bration or a paternalistic tolerance. This example is exactly the complex ‘space’
in which discourse analysis—the examination of the categories employed by a
diviner to explain his practice and attendant perception—and alternate epis-
temologies meet in the academic study of religion.
As the above quotation indicates, Joe Cassidy’s healing work is based
upon a spiritual concept of matter. It exemplifies the tight coupling
88 Johnston
between alternative modes of perception and what is counted as material-

ity. In very broad brushstrokes, Cassidy’s spiritual matter is a form of matter–
consciousness (no ontological dualism) that is understood to be constitutive
of all things and to link them to the divine (diversely defined). Often referred
to as subtle matter or, particularly with regard to embodiment, as the subtle
body, the dominant concept of this spiritual matter has entered the contempo-
rary ‘West’ (where it thrives in yoga classes, alternative healing practices, and
many diverse forms of self-directed spirituality) as a conceptual legacy of the
modern Theosophical Society (Lockhardt 2010; Johnston 2008; Samuels and
Johnston 2013). The subtle body is variously conceptualized in numerous reli-
gious/ spiritual traditions. It is a concept of the body that is not implicitly
tied to corporeality and links individuals, the environment, and the broader
universe in an intersubjective relationship. That is, they are mutually co-
constituted by the same ‘substance’. It is this ‘energy’ that Cassidy works with
in his healing practice.
Cassidy considers that many illnesses in humans, other-than-human ani-
mals, and the environment are caused by the imbalance of this energy. He
accords this imbalance a number of causes, but chief amongst them is what he
terms ‘geopathic stress’:
I use my divining skills to treat houses and buildings that are affected
by geopathic stress. In my experience, most cases of geopathic stress
are caused by the effects of underground water lines, excavation distur-
bances, or energy ley lines interacting with the electromagnetic fields
in houses or buildings. If you build your house over these natural
underground water lines, a negative energy may well build up in your
house, which can lead to all kinds of problems for the people who live
there.
cassidy 2012: 80
In articulating this concept of “geopathic stress,” Cassidy is invoking several

forms of vernacular and esoteric knowledge, including water divining (or
dowsing), whose traditions are particularly rich in the nineteenth-century
mining areas of Great Britain (especially Cornwall), associated generally with
Celtic regions, including Wales and Ireland, and where standing stone forma-
tions are located (Graves and Poraj-Wilczynska 2008). This belief is combined
with the proposition of “ley lines”—a belief that the earth is mapped by ener-
getic pathways which intersect with environmental phenomena (such as
unusual rock formations). These ley lines are understood to have influenced
the construction of ancient pathways and buildings (including burial mounds,
earthworks, etc.). There was a renewed flourishing of this idea during the New
Age heyday (Watkins 1970; Ivakhiv 2007).
Cassidy remedies this perceived imbalance by “acupuncturing the earth,”
(2012: 81); that is, he inserts steel bars into the ground at points he deems
appropriate. This is a clear reference to a form of traditional Chinese medicine,
which is premised upon an understanding of the physical body as permeated
by numerous types of chi (energy) which link it intimately with its environ-
ment, both physical and spiritual (Anon. 1966). This is a model of the subtle
body. Therefore, Cassidy works on the ‘subtle bodies’ of the land in order to
affect healing on the subtle and physical bodies of those who dwell in it.
Significantly for this context, subtle bodies are understood to be apprehended
by intuitive or ‘alternate’ modes of perception that can be cultivated by under-
taking various embodied practices (ritual, meditation, prayer, initiation, etc). It
is clear that Cassidy’s conceptualization of his healing practice is informed by
pre-existing discourses about the environment and spiritual agency; indeed, as
noted, he utilizes the name of an alternative healing treatment to explain his
remedy for the environment.
In the opening quotation to this section, Cassidy reports that he knew how to
cure the land because of direct communication from an other-than-human
source: “the universe was telling me” (2012: 130). This capacity for alternate
knowing is something that Cassidy recounts in his biography as having been
developed over a period of time, but only after an ongoing personal health crisis
was treated by acknowledging his intuitive skills. Cassidy’s biographical narra-
tive is typical of a genre found in New Age and self-directed spirituality dis-
courses. It includes typical narrative elements, including a catalyst—often in
the form of personal physical illness—that mobilizes the realization that the
individual can experience alternate modes of knowing and that this intuitive
knowledge is of immense benefit for the individual and can also be of benefit to
others. Concomitant with this realization is a re-ordering of lifestyle and life
priorities. However, the production of this genre of spiritual autobiography
(particularly in North America) is dominated by women, in particular middle-
class white women (for example Louise L. Hay). In fact, 1980s New Age discourse
has been strongly critiqued on the basis of the neoliberal position that many
accounts incorporated (Barcan and Johnston 2006). Cassidy’s masculine gender
and his socio-economic position—born in Nass, a lower socio-economic com-
muter suburb in County Kildare, he lived the majority of his early life on a coun-
cil estate, initially training and working as a stone mason—distinguishes his
narrative. This perhaps reflects the fact that the vernacular healing traditions of
his cultural region gendered knowledge differently than normative discourse,
where the intuitive is commonly aligned with the feminine.
90 Johnston
Common to Cassidy’s life story and the mega-seller New Age examples of
alternative healing skills is a narrative of suppression with regard to intuitive
knowledge. The intuitive knowledge and attendant skill in healing is concep-
tualized within normative discursive frameworks that are understood to
privilege forms of rationality based upon empirical observation and bio-
medical concepts of the body. This proposed suppression is not purely a com-
munal bio-politics, but is also cast as a discourse that inhibits the individual’s
conceptualization of themselves and their capacities. The widely published
critiques of such normative discourse in New Age culture and the valuation
of traditional healers in vernacular contexts provide the conceptual para-
digm through which individuals such as Joe Cassidy can both recognize
aspects of themselves and communicate them to others, although these rein-
force the reason–intuition dualism as the dominant cultural trope. If the
lived reality of engaging simultaneously with many modes of epistemology
were a normative feature of dominant discourse, this ‘suppression’ narrative
would not need to be invoked. It would perhaps be replaced by discourses on
the ramifications of choice vis-à-vis what aspects of the self the individual
(and culture) values and pays attention to. Implicit in the experiences detailed
by Cassidy is the recognition that perceiving other-than-human agency was
linked to his conscious development of specific perception skills. Intuitive
knowledge and the perceptions it gleans require the experiencing subject to
place an emphasis on reception. This is an embodied awareness of their inter-
subjective relations.
For Joe Cassidy, he either just ‘knows’ information (a form of claircogni-
zance), or he sees people (geographically or temporally distant) and historical
occurrences as visions. He understands the capacity to have such visions as
emerging from the ‘energy’ of a place, which he intuitively hears: “I listened to
the story of the land” (2012: 129) he writes of curing a pasture on which horses
refused to graze for a wealthy Irish stud syndicate. With regard to his ability to
cure sick animals, he claims to have always had an “intuitive knowledge regard-
ing how to heal them” (2012: 28). On intuition itself, he is adamant that it “can-
not be taught,” while admitting that skills in its application, such as water
divining, are taught in workshop formats (2012: 79).
While not advocating that the type of intuitive experiences familiar to Joe
Cassidy are open to all, it seems an entirely plausible proposition that if we are
serious (politically, personally, and professionally) about acknowledging other-
than-human, vital agency, then we also have to recognize the existence of a
legitimate, expanded epistemological field. To do so requires suspending the
discourses of knowledge mastery that have been the historical foundation of
the modern academy.
Conclusion: Researching at the Limits of Discourse
What is needed is a robust account of the materialization of all bodies—

“human” and “non-human”—including the agential contributions of all
material forces. […] This will require an understanding of the nature of
the relationship between discursive practices and material phenomena;
an accounting of “non-human” as well as “human” forms of agency; and
an understanding of the precise causal nature of productive practices
that take account of the fullness of matter’s implication in its ongoing
historicity.
barad 2007: 66
Although the above quotation pertains to Karen Barad’s significant work in the
fields of quantum physics and the critical humanities (and the mutual imbri-
cation of cognition and materiality), it can equally well stand as a program of
endeavor for scholars of magical practice and esoteric knowledges. As the
previous discussion has sought to highlight, the issue of materiality is of cen-
tral concern when considering alternate epistemologies. These knowledges
pre-suppose a concept of matter that radically challenges empirical defini-
tions and by necessity requires the refiguring of matter–consciousness and
subject–object relations. Indeed, this form of matter—with its long concep-
tual heritages—is closely akin to the other-than-human vibrancy the new
materialists strive to recognize (while they remain anxious about vitalism’s
taint of the irrational and spiritual). However, in order to admit alternate epis-
temologies to greater consideration—and cultivation—we are not required, as
Bennett fears, to throw out critical analysis. We most certainly need to keep
critically investigating the tropes and frameworks used to construct epistemo-
logical identities and knowledges of all kinds. Rather, as Barad proposes, the
ways in which concepts pre-determine materiality and what can be done with
it (including how it is both conceptualized and studied) need to be continually
investigated.
This investigation can take many forms, but develops from two foundational
orientations: firstly, it requires that discourses of mastery be set aside—
alternate epistemologies are slippery knowledges, and grasping their presence
in the intersection of theory and practice is both tricky and subjective and
requires a range of different modalities of inquiry; secondly, it requires an
attitude of simultaneity towards epistemological resources—that is, working
with the idea that a plurality of epistemologies were concurrently used in the
construction of the phenomena under study as well as being active in the con-
temporary study of the material. Normative discourses contain this diversity
92 Johnston
within reductive binary structures. Greater scope is needed for messy intersec-
tions, which is all the more reason to push at the boundaries of what can be
identified (delimited) in the material and in our own methodologies. This is in
addition to continuing the work of subjecting labels such as ‘intuition’, ‘mysti-
cal’, and ‘alternate’ to sustained discourse analysis that includes both the spe-
cific socio-cultural construction and use of these terms as well as their
interrelation with concepts of materiality.
Lambros Malafouris (2013) contends through Material Engagement Theory
that the mind is not localized in the brain but is extended, existing in close
reciprocity (a continuum) with materiality.3 Indeed, he argues that cognition
and matter mutually constitute one another (cognition shaping materiality
and materiality shaping cognition). This is not simply an issue of examining
the way that knowledge is ‘managed’ through ‘talk and text’, as in epistemic
discourse analysis, but rather invokes more ontological considerations regard-
ing how the locus of generation of such discourses may be conceived (i.e., not
as purely ideational). Therefore, as scholars, we need to pay greater attention
to this mutual imbrication, a process that I have argued herein requires close
attention to how we cultivate our own modes of perception. It requires differ-
ent forms of embodied analysis, ones that afford the time to reflect on the
intersubjective relations—a conscious practice of critical reception.
This practice of critical reception—open to various modes of epistemologi-
cal engagement—may take many forms. For just as how one thinks and the
capacity and limits of any such thinking (one’s ‘un-thought’ predicates) are
culturally determined, so too is reception. To read, view, and look are not
innate processes; we are taught how to view, and our regimes of reception alter
given changes in context and expectation. Considered thus, there is an inher-
ently ethical dimension to listening for alternate forms of ‘knowing’, for such
experience endows the potential to cultivate our receptive literacy and estab-
lish relations capable of rendering and registering Bennett’s vital matter.
Intuitive or ‘alternative’ responses and practices are no less embedded in
cultural paradigms of possibility and normativity then any other type of
embodied, discursive, linguistic practice, and as such we have the same ethical
imperative to trouble our assumptions and expectations of such encounters.
Perhaps, then, we can glimpse—however necessarily partially—something of
the ‘thing power’ of other-than-human agency, including expansive and illusive
3 This idea has had currency with various forms of phenomenology for many years, for exam-
ple Yuasa Yasuo (1987). However, its importance in cognitive studies cannot be underesti-
mated as a counter to the tendency for reductive universal claims about cognition and the
brain more generally.
materiality. These are relations and objects about which we need to consider
what they do to us (and not just what we do to them). For that, a broad toolkit
of epistemological approaches is requisite. Just what constitutes materiality is
deeply intersectional with what modes of knowing are attributed the valency
and power to apprehend it. The worldview of Late Antique magical practitio-
ners necessarily remains illusive, and Joe Cassidy’s world is one that is alien for
many contemporary people, yet these are exactly the realms in which non-
human agencies speak and are heard. Henri Bergson’s (1896) famous maxim
regarding differences being not of kind (that is, an ontological difference) but
of degree when considering the relationship between consciousness and mat-
ter can perhaps be stretched to one more ‘re-application’ in this context. For
many scholars, acknowledging that alternate modes of knowledge exist is not
a problem; the trouble occurs when drawing (and maintaining) the—what I
hope to have demonstrated is an ultimately porous—boundary between these
knowledges and validated academic forms of reason. This chapter has, in the
first instance, been concerned with acknowledging that this ‘other’ of alterna-
tive knowing, of intuition for example, is already there, constitutive of the very
rational knowledges themselves. The question, then, is the degree to which
scholarship wants to allow these multiplicities of knowledge to be present in
more obviously different representational systems and forms (linguistic, artis-
tic, etc.) within scholarly discourse. There will be no universal solution in these
debates. However, that is no ‘reason’ to pretend that such knowledges do not
exist and are not already a factor, both in what is being examined and in the
way in which the examination is being conducted. I did not need to give up my
critical faculties or resort to methodological naiveté in order to acknowledge
such epistemological plurality. Indeed, doing so has required enacting a respect
for epistemological difference and alternate knowledges muffled by dominant
discourse. It also requires living (co-constitutive thinking–doing) at the frus-
trating and creative limits of discourse analysis.
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chapter 5
Distinctions of Religion: The Search for Equivalents

of ‘Religion’ and the Challenge of Theorizing a
‘Global Discourse of Religion’
Adrian Hermann
While discursive approaches to the study of religion have been proposed by a

number of authors over the course of the last decades (Kippenberg 1983;
Lincoln 1989; McCutcheon 1997; Murphy 2000; von Stuckrad 2003), they have
recently returned to the center of theoretical debates (Fitzgerald 2007; von
Stuckrad 2010, 2013b; Hjelm 2011; Moberg 2013; Taira 2013; Wijsen 2013;
Bergunder 2014a). In this context, scholars have been speaking of a ‘(modern)
discourse of religion’ or even a ‘global discourse of religion’, which has emerged
over the last few centuries (Green and Searle-Chatterjee 2008: 6; Wank 2009:
126; Bergunder 2010: 53; 2014b: 4; Fitzgerald 2011: 157; Josephson 2012: 5; King
2012: 48, 52). With regard to his proposal for a “discursive study of religion,”
Kocku von Stuckrad (2013b: 6) has noted “the ubiquitous presence of religion
in the cultural global worlds of the twenty-first century,” which—considering
the theoretical background of his remarks—has to be understood as referring
to a ‘global discourse’. In these scholars’ statements, therefore, the existence of
a ‘global discourse of religion’ is implied and taken for granted, although none
of them spend much time on the question of how such a ‘global discourse’
might be conceptualized theoretically.
At the same time, the question of whether or not concepts similar to ‘reli-
gion’ can be found in non-Western (as well as ancient European) languages
and cultures has been the subject of much academic controversy over the past
two decades. In a recent book on the history of the concept of ‘religion’, Brent
Nongbri (2013: 2) has summarized academic debates over the last thirty years
as follows: “no ancient language has a term that really corresponds to what
modern people mean when they say ‘religion’. […T]erms and concepts corre-
sponding to religion do not appear in the literature of non-Western cultures
until after those cultures encountered European Christians.” Similarly, Russell
T. McCutcheon (2001: 10, emphasis removed) has noted that “‘religion’ is a
slippery signifier, […] because many of the peoples that we study by means of
this category have no equivalent term.” Writing about Japan, Helen Hardacre
(1989: 63) has argued that ideas about religion which originated in Europe and

98 Hermann
America “entered a society that had no equivalent concept or term, no idea of

a distinct sphere of life that could be called religious, and no idea of a generic
religion of which there might be local variants like Christianity, Buddhism, and
so on.” Likewise, Jason Ā. Josephson (2012: 1), writing about the nineteenth cen-
tury, notes that “when the Japanese translators encountered the term ‘religion’,
they had no idea what it meant. […] No word then existed in the Japanese
language equivalent to the English term or covering anything close to the same
range of meanings.” In reference to the emergence of the terms “Hinduism”
and “Buddhism,” Hans G. Kippenberg and Kocku von Stuckrad (2003: 41) have
argued that Indian and Tibetan cultures do not have equivalents of these
terms, just as they do not have an equivalent of the general term ‘religion’.
Many additional examples could be cited for the conviction expressed by
contemporary scholars that ‘religion’ is a modern Western concept, which does
not have equivalents in other languages, cultures, and time periods (e.g.,
Tenbruck 1993: 37; Graf 2007: 237). However, some of the scholars arguing for a
lack of equivalents also claim that the modern Western concept of ‘religion’
has spread globally, so that what was once a Western concept has now been
appropriated all over the world (cf. Matthes 1993: 21; DuBois 2005).
In the light of these statements about the emergence of a ‘global discourse
of religion’, on the one hand, and critical assessments of ‘religion’ as a ‘modern
Western concept’ that is absent in other languages, cultures, and time periods,
on the other hand (which is understood to severely limit the usefulness of the
term in cross-cultural comparisons), we must ask: How can the academic study
of religion, and particularly a discursive approach, make sense of these claims
and situate itself in these debates?
As we have seen, some scholars have argued that there are no equiva-
lents of the concept of ‘religion’ in premodern European and non-Western
languages and cultures (prompting others to attempt to prove the oppo-
site). This is often (explicitly or in passing) combined with the view that
where such equivalents exist outside of the West today, they are of recent
origin and are the result of the encounter with colonialism and especially
Christian missionaries, although details are not provided regarding how
this came about.
At the same time, those describing ‘religion’ as a ‘global discourse’ and
developing approaches which take the world-wide spread of a ‘modern
Western understanding’ of the concept for granted often do not devote much
energy to exploring how we should think theoretically about this ‘globality’ of
‘religion’. In the current volume, the chapters by Frans Wijsen, Teemu Taaira,
and Mitsutoshi Horii are interesting in this regard, as they also—partly or
extensively—deal with these processes through which translations of ‘religion’
Distinctions of Religion 99
emerge in other languages. None of them, however, focuses directly on what it

means for these terms in non-Western languages to become established as
common translations of ‘religion’.
In my view, current debates in the study of religion—especially insofar as
discursive approaches are concerned—have not yet paid enough attention to
these issues. In this chapter, I will therefore attempt to investigate this situa-
tion, identify some dead ends in current theoretical thinking, and suggest new
ways of conceptualizing a ‘global discourse of religion’ and the search for non-
Western equivalents of ‘religion’. The main questions to be explored below are
whether and how we should conceptualize ‘religion’ as one ‘global discourse’.
From the Search for Equivalents to a ‘Global Discourse of Religion’
Looking at a recently published edited volume on the concept of ‘religion’ and

its potential equivalents in Asia (Schalk 2013) allows us to clarify what is at
stake in the search for non-Western and premodern equivalents. In these
essays, various scholars with expert knowledge of the local histories deal with
the question of whether or not it is possible to identify concepts equivalent to
‘religion’ in Asian languages and cultures. The introduction argues that the oft-
repeated claim that there are no functional or semantic equivalents to the
modern concept of ‘religion’ outside of European modernity has not yet been
thoroughly investigated by scholars deeply familiar with the respective cul-
tural contexts (Deeg, Freiberger, and Kleine 2013: x).1 Therefore, the volume is
concerned with “the use of possible linguistic equivalents in specific discursive
contexts” as well as “the functions of social systems or cultural subdomains in
specific historical contexts” (Deeg, Freiberger, and Kleine 2013: x).2 As the
result of the various authors’ investigations, the introduction notes that, while
hardly any exact equivalents for the concept of religion in premodern and
early-modern Asia could be found, this does not necessarily mean that there
was no awareness or concept of a specific cultural domain which could be
called ‘religion’ (Deeg, Freiberger, and Kleine 2013: xviii).
The ways in which this kind of approach to the question of ‘equivalents’
develops its arguments can be seen, for example, in Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz’
(2013) contribution to the volume cited above. In her essay, as well as in number
of other recent articles (Kollmar-Paulenz 2007, 2012a, 2012b), she investigates
1 In light of the many detailed specialist studies referred to below (p. 111–118), however, this
claim does not seem justified.
2 The English translations of German quotations here and in the following are my own.
100 Hermann
the existence of ‘non-Western concepts of religion’, especially in the Mongolian

context. Her central question (2007: 1) is whether we can find forms of reflexiv-
ity outside of the West which made it possible to conceive of ‘religion’ as an
autonomous sphere of society, or whether non-Western ‘religions’ have only
been constituted as a result of contact with a Western concept of ‘religion’. In
her detailed and comprehensive study of Mongolian terminology and its trans-
formations (cf. especially 2012b, 2013), she is able to identify a number of local
concepts that are used by Buddhist monks to describe themselves, as well as
other terms that are used to denote their opposition to shamanic practices and
the “teaching of the shamans” (2012b: 103). She argues:
A close reading of the available Mongolian sources of the 17th to 19th

centuries reveals an ongoing reification process of a ‘teaching of the sha-
mans’. […] First, the Mongolian indigenous religious specialists were
described as possessing a ‘wrong view’, compared to the ‘true’ Buddhist
teaching. […] In later texts we note an increasing use of objectifying
vocabulary to characterise the shamans. They are no longer those who
possess an ‘old and wrong [world]view’, but are described as adhering to
a ‘teaching’ different from Buddhism, without judging this to be inferior.
2012b: 103, insertion in original
Among the terms used in texts from the seventeenth century onwards are šasin
mörgül to denote “Buddhism” and böge mörgül for “Shamanism” (2012b: 95).
Kollmar-Paulenz (2012b: 99) argues that the development of the term buruγu
üjel (“wrong view”) makes it possible to reconstruct the beginnings of how “in
the course of the Buddhist encounter with the Mongolian shamans the loosely
connected and extremely localized shamanic ritual practices […] were viewed
as a single system and thus reified.”
While there is no question that Kollmar-Paulenz’ investigation of Mongolian
terminology in regard to Buddhist and shamanic practice is both extremely
knowledgeable and helpful in order to understand the development of local
orders of knowledge, her approach represents a way of treating the question of
non-Western equivalents of ‘religion’ that I think is not helpful in moving the
discussion further along. The central focus of her studies is an attempt to dis-
prove the claim that Asian cultures have no concept of ‘religion’ by identifying
possible semantic, functional, or structural equivalents of the modern Western
concept of ‘religion’ in Mongolian terminologies (Kollmar-Paulenz 2013: 155).
While she does convincingly show that reflexive processes on the level of elite
discourse led to the reification of certain fields of practice and to the juxtaposi-
tion of, for example, šasin mörgül and böge mörgül (2012b: 95), the question of
what makes it possible to identify these terms as ‘non-Western concepts of

religion’ is not answered directly. While in her earlier work she attempted to
define the “concepts of religion” she was looking for (2007: 2), a later article
characterizes her goal as the reconstruction of a “discourse” and an identifica-
tion of the establishment of certain forms of a “comparative terminology” in
Mongolia (2013: 156). In this sense, she draws the conclusion that, while the
terms she identifies are part of a different “semantic field” than the Western
concept of ‘religion’ and no equivalence in terms of “content” can be identified,
an equivalence in terms of “function” can still be said to exist (2007: 16–17). She
therefore argues that the claim that non-Western cultures do not have their
own “concepts of religion” can no longer be maintained (2012a: 92).
However, as Kollmar-Paulenz herself notes (2012a: 82), the approach she
outlines in her various publications suffers from an inextricable dilemma—in
order to identify equivalents, one first has to begin with an understanding of
what one is looking for. In this way, the current search for ‘equivalents of reli-
gion’ is caught up in a tautological paradox, first having to define a specific
understanding of ‘religion’, and then searching for equivalents in ancient
European or non-Western languages and cultures and subsequently claiming
their existence (or non-existence). In approaching the problem in this way, the
question of whether such ‘equivalents of religion’ can be identified will never
be satisfyingly answered. Furthermore, Kollmar-Paulenz’ approach is repre-
sentative of this form of the search for equivalents in a second sense; namely,
while she reconstructs her historical source material in great detail, she contin-
ues to use a terminology of “religion,” “religious field,” and “religious special-
ists” as second-order categories throughout her texts—the very categories
whose existence in the Mongolian context she is claiming to be investigating.
Instead of faulting her for this, I think it is reasonable to assume that such a
lack of clarity is a direct result of the tautological structure of this way of deal-
ing with the question of equivalents. However, rather than needing to be aban-
doned, the search for equivalents of ‘religion’ has to be reconceptualized, as I
will argue below.3
3 It is important to note that a genealogical approach to tracing the emergence of a ‘global

discourse of religion’—as outlined in this chapter—is not the same as asking whether or not
a ‘phenomenon of religion’ existed outside of the West before the incorporation of non-
Western languages and cultures into that modern discourse. This is a different question,
which to be asked meaningfully—especially in the context of the discipline of the academic
study of religion—would first of all require the explicit postulation of a ‘theory of religion’. By
not clearly distinguishing between an investigation of the ‘global discourse of religion’ and
the scholarly use of ‘religion’ as a second-order concept—two approaches to the study of
religion which could be differentiated as a ‘discourse theoretical’ and a ‘theory-of-religion’
102 Hermann
First, however, let us return to the current debates about a discursive study
of religion, where a similarly circular logic in regard to ‘religion’ still seems to
be at work. In a series of articles, Kocku von Stuckrad has invited his colleagues
to pursue a “discursive study of religion” (2003; 2010; 2013a; 2013b). In following
his approach, he urges us to conceptualize a “discourse on religion” as follows:
“‘Religion’ refers to contributions to a discourse on religion, while ‘RELIGION’
refers to the discourse itself. […W]e can […] define RELIGION simply as fol-
lows: RELIGION is the societal organization of knowledge about religion”
(2013b: 17). In this way, ‘religion’, as an “empty signifier” (as von Stuckrad sug-
gests, drawing on the work of Ernesto Laclau), “can be activated with defini-
tions, meanings, and communicational practices” (2013b: 17). However, the
main question in this context is: How do we identify those kinds of “contribu-
tions” that belong to a “discourse on religion”?
Von Stuckrad’s answer to this problem can best be observed in his discus-
sion of “religious semantics” (2010: 166). Dealing with the question of whether
or not football should be considered as ‘religious’ or as ‘a religion’, he writes:
“As long as the cultural communication about football does not involve refer-
ences to what the actors regard as religious, football does not belong to the
religious field of discourse; however, when people start using religious seman-
tics in their communication about football—which can also be non-verbal,
such as the building of a prayer room in a football stadium—football defi-
nitely belongs to the religious field of discourse” (2010: 166). Treating the prob-
lem in this way, however, only shifts the question to the identification of
“religious semantics” and a reliance on the actors’ self-understanding. Follow
ing von Stuckrad, the identification of those semantics seems to rely on a tacit
knowledge shared by the actors in question, which allows them to regard cer-
tain semantics as “religious.” This can also be seen in the way in which he
describes and links “tacit knowledge” to the concept of discourse: “people in
Western societies can simply assume that their communication partners
share this knowledge” (2013b: 10).
In addition to the problem of conflicting self-understandings, however,
such a reliance on a ‘self-identification’ of the contributions to the “discourse
approach (Hermann 2015, Chapter 2)—current debates about ‘religion’ often suffer from a
lack of clarity. In the same vein, Brent Nongbri (2013: 154–159) advocates a clear differentia-
tion between “descriptive” and “redescriptive” ways of speaking about ‘religion’. Russell T.
McCutcheon (2015: 30–31) has somewhat similarly argued for a distinction between “method”
and “theory” in the study of religion, wherein the first refers to a thorough and rigorous his-
toricization of our scholarly tools, and the second to “a naturalistic explanation of religion’s
causes or origin.”
on religion” only appears convincing if we do not take into account the prob-
lem of translation. It remains unclear how “contributions” to this discourse can
be identified if we are not only dealing with semantics regarded as “religious”
by actors expressing themselves in a European language. In this way, we are
once again dealing with the problem of ‘religion’ in non-Western languages.
Thus, the problem of identifying the contributions to the “discourse on reli-
gion” is closely tied to the problem of the identification of non-Western equiva-
lents of ‘religion’, especially if this discourse is understood as global. Rather
than offering a solution to this problem, the reference to the self-identification
of contributions makes it appear as if, behind von Stuckrad’s concept of ‘reli-
gion as discourse’ (i.e., RELIGION), there is still an unexplained understanding
of ‘religion’ as a phenomenon, which makes it possible to clearly identify those
contributions which are contributions to RELIGION (with a different theoreti-
cal focus, Bergunder [2014a] also attempts to grapple with this problem).
This is not to say, however, that we should ignore von Stuckrad’s insistence
on the importance of ‘discourse’ to the study of religion. Rather, while I am very
sympathetic to his repeated calls for a “discursive study of religion,” I do think
that a ‘discourse theoretical study of religion’ has to go further in reflecting on
possible ways to understand the unity of the discourse it attempts to describe,
especially across languages. The problem of theorizing not just a ‘discourse of
religion’ but a ‘global discourse of religion’ forces us to reconceptualize our
approach instead of relying on a tautological identification of “religious seman-
tics” in order to identify the contributions which belong to this discourse.
In the following sections, I will therefore argue that these two tautological
problems in current debates about ‘religion’ should be taken as the starting
point for a change in perspective regarding the ‘global discourse of religion’.
Indeed, instead of seeing the global spread of ‘Western’ understandings of ‘reli-
gion’ as a problem, the global establishment of equivalents of ‘religion’ in non-
Western languages has to be understood as the condition of possibility for the
emergence of a ‘global discourse of religion’. However, such a perspective
simultaneously begs the question of what makes these terms in other lan-
guages ‘equivalents of religion’.
In order to develop this reconceptualization, I propose two alternative
approaches towards the ‘global discourse of religion’: 1) the search for ‘equiv-
alents of religion’ in non-Western languages has to be reoriented towards a
historical investigation of the establishment of such equivalents in processes
of translingual practice; 2) at the same time, the unity of the ‘global discourse
of religion’ has to be described in a way that does not presuppose a tautological
definition of a ‘phenomenon of religion’, ‘religious semantics’, or the reliance
on the self-understanding of ‘religious actors’.
104 Hermann
Therefore, I will now present some ideas about how to better conceptualize
such a ‘global discourse of religion’ by drawing on Lydia H. Liu’s (1995) concept
of “translingual practice” and identifying three ‘distinctions of religion’ as this
discourse’s “rules of formation” (Foucault 1991).
“Translingual Practice” and the Historical Making of

Hypothetical Equivalences
As a first attempt at a change in perspective, I suggest that we reframe the

debate about non-Western equivalents of ‘religion’ by drawing on the concept
of “translingual practice,” as developed by Lydia H. Liu (1995). Her approach
takes translation theory as its starting point in order to rework basic assump-
tions about transcultural comparisons (Liu 1995: 1). Unlike positions that either
assume a radical incommensurability between languages and the impossibil-
ity of the translation of complex concepts, or are convinced that complete
translatability is achievable, Liu focuses on translation as a pragmatic practice
and on the production of equivalence in the context of historical processes of
translation. She proposes an approach that “will help open up, rather than
assume, the hypothetical equivalence of meanings between the languages”
(Liu 1995: 19). In this way, translation can be theorized as a process always
already happening, which enables us to reconstruct historical processes of the
generation of equivalence (Liu 1995; 5).
Drawing on Liu’s approach makes it possible to reconceptualize the search
for ‘equivalents’ and the question of the translation of complex concepts. It
allows us to move beyond trying to prove the existence (or lack) of concepts of
‘religion’ in non-Western cultures and languages and urges us to ask more fruit-
ful questions:
Perhaps the thing to do is go beyond the deconstructionist stage of trying

to prove that equivalents do not exist and look, instead, into their man-
ner of becoming. For it is the making of hypothetical equivalences that
enables the modus operandi of translation and its politics. For instance,
historically when and how do equivalents or tropes of equivalence get
established between languages? Is it possible that at certain levels of
practice some equivalents might cease to be mere illusions? What enables
such changes? Under what conditions does difference, which is the per-
ceived ground for the inscription of equivalence, become translatable in
‘other words’?
liu 1995: 16
In this way, the impasse of the necessity of making an ontological decision

between the claim of an incommensurability of languages and cultures and
the claim of transhistorical and transdiscursive equivalents can be refocused
towards “the occurrences of historical contact, interaction, translation, and the
travel of words and ideas between languages” (Liu 1995: 19). This opens up a
new way of thinking about the reconstruction of historical discourses from a
global history perspective.
The question of “translatability” is thus reconceptualized from the search
for and identification of equivalents (or lack thereof) towards an analysis of
their historical production: “the matching of meanings is itself a historical phe-
nomenon under investigation” (Liu 1999a: 137). This aspect of Liu’s approach is
of central importance, since such a focus on translation as a historical process
makes us aware of the fact that a historical analysis of ‘non-Western equiva-
lents of religion’ should not only focus on the history of a certain term that is
discussed as a possible equivalent of ‘religion’ in a different language. Rather,
the search for equivalents has not been fully historicized as long as the produc-
tion of meaning and the equivalence of meaning between terms in different
languages itself is still seen as a transcendental precondition of translation and
not as a historical phenomenon in itself (cf. Derrida 1985).
From this changed perspective, we can draw the conclusion that an investi-
gation of translatability has to be understood in a new way:
[Translatability] refers to the historical making of hypothetical equiva-

lences between languages. These equivalences tend to be makeshift
inventions in the beginning and become more or less fixed through
repeated use or come to be supplanted by the preferred hypothetical
equivalences of a later generation. As I have argued elsewhere, one does
not translate between equivalents; rather, one creates tropes of equiva-
lence in the middle zone of translation between the host and guest lan-
guages. This middle zone of hypothetical equivalence, which is occupied
by neologistic imagination, becomes the very ground for change.
liu 1999a: 137
Thus the historical practice of the hypothetical fixation of equivalences of

meaning between languages becomes the issue under investigation, and trans-
latability itself becomes a product of the contact between languages and
cultures (Liu 1999b: 2). The focus now lies on the “historical condition of trans-
lation” (Liu 1999b: 5–6) rather than on the question of whether or not non-
Western equivalents for certain terms are thought to exist. In this way, we can
concentrate on the “process by which new words, meanings, discourses, and
106 Hermann
modes of representation arise, circulate, and acquire legitimacy within the

host language due to, or in spite of, the latter’s contact/collision with the guest
language” (Liu 1995: 26). Looking at what happens in the host language in a
process of translation allows us to understand the creation of meaning not so
much as a ‘transformation’ of meaning from one language to the other, but
rather as an ‘invention’ of meaning in the host language (1995: 26). Rather than
being a “neutral event” independent of ideological and political disputes,
translation in Liu’s understanding is reconceptualized as “the very site of such
struggles” (Liu 1995: 26). It is here “where the guest language is forced to
encounter the host language, where the irreducible differences between them
are fought out, authorities invoked or challenged, ambiguities dissolved or cre-
ated, and so forth, until new words and meanings emerge in the host language
itself” (Liu 1995: 26).
In replacing the fruitless and tautological search for the existence of
equivalents—the problems of which I have outlined in the preceding section—
with an investigation of “translingual practice,” we can focus on the practice of
the postulation of equivalences and the historical processes of their production
in order to develop an approach that represents a middle way between rela-
tivism and universalism. Instead of a search for ‘semantic’ or ‘functional’ equiv-
alents of ‘religion’ in Asia (cf. the essays collected in Schalk 2013), we investigate
the historical making of hypothetical equivalents of ‘religion’ in the context of
the ‘modern discourse of religion’ in “global circulatory networks of translated
knowledge” (Liu 1999a: 26). Following this approach, the establishment of an
‘equivalent of religion’ in a non-Western context does not refer not to an iso-
lated claim of its existence, but rather to the establishment of “tropes of equiva-
lence in the middle zone of interlinear translation between the host and the
guest languages” (Liu 1995: 40). At the same time, a simple identification of
continuity and discontinuity in the history of complex concepts becomes dif-
ficult. Instead, abstract questions of continuity and discontinuity are replaced
by a concern with “contingencies, struggles, and surprising twists and turns of
events at each moment of confrontation between nations of different groups of
people” (Liu 1995: 32). The meeting of languages and the resulting translingual
practice is the location in which “confrontations register a meaning-making his-
tory that cuts across different national languages and histories” (Liu 1995: 32). In
the same way, the question of the ‘authenticity’ or ‘Europeanization’ of a cer-
tain use of language is replaced with a perspective in which all language is con-
stantly in a state of hybridity as the result of ongoing translations.
Drawing on Liu’s concept of translingual practice, the search for ‘equiva-
lents of religion’ can thus be reconceptualized. ‘Equivalence’ is no longer a
question of the identification of certain non-Western terms that—‘in some
sense or another’—are taken to be equivalent to ‘the Western concept of

religion’, but rather equivalence itself becomes understood as a discursive
practice. In addition, not only equivalence but meaning itself becomes a phe-
nomenon under investigation. This allows us to move beyond the tautological
approach currently predominant in the search for equivalents, which always
already has to presuppose a certain understanding of ‘religion’ if it is to identify
equivalents in non-Western languages and cultures. The question at hand now
is one of the genealogy of these equivalents and a detailed historical recon-
struction of their “manner of becoming” (Liu 1995: 16). In this way, the histori-
cal process of the establishment of such hypothetical equivalents of ‘religion’ in
most non-Western languages over the course of the last few centuries becomes
the focus of a reconceptualized global history of ‘religion’ and of the ‘global
discourse of religion’.
Speaking of a global discourse, however, leads us back to the question of
how to speak of the establishment of such a discourse across languages and
how we are to conceptualize its unity without necessarily having to ground
this unity in a common “transcendental signified” to which the various terms
in different languages refer (Derrida 1978: 280). The following section will pres-
ent some ideas on how to approach this problem.
“Rules of Formation,” the Unity of a Global Discourse,

and the Distinctions of Religion
A focus on translingual practice makes it possible to conceptualize equivalent

signifiers for ‘religion’ in different languages without necessarily grounding
them in a shared signified ‘phenomenon’, but instead understanding them as
the result of historical processes of translation. Such an approach, however,
still leaves open the question of how these different terms in different lan-
guages can be said to be part of a singular ‘global discourse of religion’. In the
following, in order to highlight the importance of this question, I turn to Michel
Foucault’s concept of discourse and the notion of “rules of formation,” which is
central to his approach.
The key focus of Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge is the question of
the “unity of a discourse,” the way in which a discursive formation can be “indi-
vidualized” (2002: 80, 76; cf. Foucault 1991 for a short overview of his approach).
This refers to the basis on which a researcher working on a wide variety of
historical material can claim to be analyzing a singular discourse. This unity,
according to Foucault (2002: 44), is to be found in the regularity of the dis-
course’s “rules of formation.”
108 Hermann
In a short text written in 1968 as an answer to a set of questions put to him

about his work, Foucault (1991: 54) characterizes his project as follows: “the
problem which I have set myself is that of the individualization of discourses.”
In speaking of a number of statements as a discourse, what is claimed is that,
despite the contradictory and heterogeneous appearance of these utterances,
there is a certain regularity to them. Foucault argues, therefore, that the unity
of a discursive formation can be conceptualized as follows:
What individualizes a discourse […] is not the unity of its object, nor its
formal structure; nor the coherence of its conceptual architecture, nor its
fundamental philosophical choices; it is rather the existence of a set of
rules of formation for all its objects (however scattered they may be), all
its operations (which can often neither be superposed nor serially con-
nected), all its concepts (which may very well be incompatible), all its
theoretical options (which are often mutually exclusive). There is an indi-
vidualized discursive formation whenever it is possible to define such a
set of rules.
1991: 54
In this way, his search for the “unity of discourse” in The Archaeology of
Knowledge leads Foucault to locate this unity not in its objects, distribution,
or interplay of differences, but rather in those relations that characterize a
certain discursive practice: “what we discover is neither a configuration, nor a
form, but a group of rules that are immanent in a practice, and define it in its
specificity” (2002: 51). This leads him to his famous claim that discourses are to
be understood as “practices that systematically form the objects of which they
speak” (Foucault 2002: 54). Their individuality is constituted by their regularity,
the discourse’s “rules of formation.” Instead of searching for a “coherence of
concepts” and an “architecture of concepts sufficiently general and abstract to
embrace all others” (Foucault 2002: 38–39), discursive unity might be found
in this “regularity of a practice” (2002: 82). On this basis, Foucault issues his
well-known appeal to “dispense with ‘things’”:
What, in short, we wish to do is to […] ‘depresentify’ them. […] To substi-

tute for the enigmatic treasure of ‘things’ anterior to discourse, the regu-
lar formation of objects that emerge only in discourse. To define these
objects without reference to the ground, the foundation of things, but by
relating them to the body of rules that enable them to form as objects of
a discourse and thus constitute the conditions of their historical appear-
ance. To write a history of discursive objects that does not plunge them
into the common depth of a primal soil, but deploys the nexus of regu-
larities that govern their dispersion.
2002: 52–53
In returning to the question formulated at the outset of the present chapter, we

can now ask: How can such “rules of formation” be identified, and how can the
unity of a discursive formation be understood if we are talking about a global
discourse? If, following Foucault, we can say that its “rules of formation” are
what allows us to individualize a discourse and as such describe its unity, and
if it is through translingual practice that ‘equivalents of religion’ become estab-
lished across different languages, the main question that remains is: How can
we describe the characteristics of a ‘global discourse of religion’ across lan-
guages, taking into account the ‘equivalents of religion’ produced in a large
number of non-Western languages over the course of the last few centuries?4
In order to answer this question, we should first look at existing attempts to
grapple with a similar problem. Over the years, a number of scholars have tried
to identify the characteristics of the ‘modern Western concept of religion’. For
the German sociologist of religion Joachim Matthes (1993: 20), for example,
two central aspects can be identified: he characterizes ‘religion’ as a “concept
of difference” on the one hand—distinguishing between ‘religion’ and other
things like ‘science’, ‘state’, and ‘magic’—and ‘religion’ as a “concept of generic-
ity” on the other, which always points to the existence of a plurality of ‘reli-
gions’. Drawing on Matthes, Hartmann Tyrell (1996: 442) describes the modern
concept of religion as characterized by a particular opposition between singu-
lar and plural, conceptualizing ‘religion’ as a general and universal concept,
different from ‘politics’ or ‘economics’, while at the same time always taking
into account a historical plurality of ‘religions’. Similarly, Robert Ford Campany
(2003: 314–315) has argued: “In the West, to speak of one ‘religion’ is also to
imply its distinction and difference from (and also partial similarity to) other
species in the same genus. […] But Western discourse on ‘religions’ is strongly
contrastive in another sense as well: to name a ‘religion’ in Western discourse
is to imply a strong sense in which it is a ‘religion’ as opposed to other, non-
‘religious’ kinds of things.” Peter Beyer (2006: 70–71), drawing on a study by
Peter Harrison (1990), speaks of the occurrence of “important shifts in meaning
4 For historical examples of the establishment of such ‘equivalents of religion’, cf. the section
on the making of hypothetical equivalents below, as well as the contributions by Horii
(Chapter 12) and Wijsen (Chapter 10) in the present volume; for East Asia, cf. the various
discussions of such instances in Goossaert 2005; Tarocco 2008; Barrett/Tarocco 2011; and
Josephson 2012.
110 Hermann
along two axes, that between religion and non-religion and that between one
religion and another,” in the emergence of the modern concept. Recently,
Brent Nongbri has similarly argued that there are two characteristics that
constitute the modern concept of ‘religion’: “to conceptualize the world as
divided between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ in the modern sense, and to think of
the religious realm as being divided into distinct religions, the so-called World
Religions” (2013: 5).
It seems, therefore, that existing attempts at characterizing the modern
Western understanding of ‘religion’ mainly focus on two aspects, which they
regard as being central to the concept: plurality, as the distinction of one ‘reli-
gion’ from another, and differentiation, as the distinction of ‘religion’ from
other social domains. These characteristics identified by Matthes, Tyrell, Ford
Campany, Beyer, and Nongbri (among others) can be used as a starting point to
develop an argument about how to possibly describe the ‘global discourse of
religion’. Drawing on these suggestions, but expanding the theoretical argu-
ment, I propose that these characteristics could be conceptualized as distinc-
tions of religion, understood as the ‘rules of formation’ of the modern ‘global
discourse of religion’.
I claim, however, that these two distinctions of religion have to be supple-
mented by a third distinction between ‘false religion’ and ‘true religion’, in the
form of a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘superstition’ or ‘magic’. This third
central aspect of the modern concept of ‘religion’ could be identified as purifi-
cation and is especially apparent if we look at recent studies of the emergence
of the ‘discourse of religion’ in East Asia over the last two hundred years
(cf. Goossaert 2006; Josephson 2006, 2009, 2012; Nedostup 2009; see also the
next section of this chapter for a short overview). Speaking about Japan, Jason
Ā. Josephson (2015: 25) argues that ‘superstition’ as the “doppelganger” of ‘reli-
gion’ is a characteristic feature of the Western concept, which in the process of
translingual practice in East Asia led to accompanying neologisms in its trans-
lation (Jap. meishin, Chin. mixin).
‘Religion’ in this way could be conceptualized as a global discourse by focus-
ing on the constant renegotiation of a number of specific distinctions: between
one ‘religion’ and another ‘religion’; between the ‘religious’ and other ‘non-
religious’ societal domains (e.g., ‘science’, ‘politics’, or ‘economics’); and
between ‘religion’ and something that suspiciously looks like ‘religion’ but has
to be treated as its other, discussed in categories such as ‘superstition’ or ‘magic’.
These three distinctions lead to constant contestation around ‘religion’ and
can be understood as this global discourse’s ‘rules of formation’. Analyzed in
this way, non-Western terms are established as equivalents of ‘religion’ and
belong to this global discourse precisely through the ways in which they are
involved in comparable struggles of comparison, differentiation, and purifica-

tion. In contested debates, they are again and again iterated as equivalents of
‘religion’. At the same time, by identifying such contested distinctions as the
center of the ‘global discourse of religion’, the question of how these distinc-
tions are appropriated in local languages and cultures is not answered in
advance. My analysis, therefore, does not point to essential characteristics of
‘religion’, but rather to a more detailed understanding of the contested cate-
gory of ‘religion’ as the center of a global discourse. However, to speak with
Rebecca Nedostup (2009: 3), it is conceptualized “as an empty center and a
perpetual question rather than as established facts.” Likewise, the distinctions
identified above are not necessarily the only distinctions of religion imagin-
able, even though they seem to point to some of the most important sites of
contestation. What is globally established is therefore not necessarily a specific
‘Western concept of religion’ with clear-cut boundaries, but a variety of debates
about a number of contested distinctions. Rather than indicating the world-
wide spread of a Western concept, ‘religion’ as a global category points to the
confluence of local and global transformations and the increasing complexity
of a global discourse.
The Making of Hypothetical Equivalents of ‘Religion’ in

Modern Asia5
Looking at some examples from Asia allows us to see how, in the context of
translingual practice, ‘equivalents of religion’ in Asian languages and cultures
were produced and appear as equivalents in the ‘global discourse of religion’
exactly insofar as they distinguish ‘religion’ according to the three distinctions
identified above. At the same time, these concepts are variable and always in
flux, as they have been coined as terms in contested debates about specific
distinctions.
China
Even though there is an ongoing debate on the question of premodern Chinese
lexical equivalents to the Western concept of ‘religion’ (Ford Campany 2003;
Yu 2005; Kleine 2011), recent studies have given us a clearer insight into the
processes of translingual practice in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century
China, which led to the establishment of the term zongjiao as an equivalent of
‘religion’. This development, as Francesca Tarocco (2008) has shown, was the
5 This section draws extensively on a forthcoming article of mine (Hermann 2016).

112 Hermann
result of a variety of cross-cultural translations and processes of cultural adap-

tation between China, Japan, and the West. However, while the re-introduction
of zongjiao as a “return graphic loan” (Liu 1995) from Japan (see below) marks
an important step in its wide dissemination in modern Chinese, recent studies
have also uncovered a more nuanced history. Rather than a neologism specifi-
cally coined in reaction to the West, there is a deeper history to both parts of
the Chinese term (zong and jiao) as well as to their combination (Barrett and
Tarocco 2011). With a history in medieval Chinese Buddhist terminology that is
still to be fully identified (Barrett 2009; Yu 2005), terms like fojiao (“the teach-
ings of the Buddha”) and tianzhujiao (“the teaching of the lord of heaven,” i.e.,
Christianity) were part of Jesuit discourse in seventeenth-century China
(Tarocco 2008: 44). Despite this longer history, zongjiao only rose to its current
prominence as a Chinese equivalent of ‘religion’ through the nineteenth-
century Chinese press, in Christian missionaries’ translations of their publica-
tions into Chinese, and especially through its various adaptations by the state
(Nedostup 2009).
A number of important transformations can therefore be identified in the
debates emerging around zongjiao in the nineteenth and early twentieth cen-
tury. While premodern China lacked a similar overreaching concept, zongjiao
now served as an umbrella term for all sorts of beliefs and practices. Differing
from important earlier Chinese semantics revolving around distinctions such
as orthodoxy/heterodoxy (zheng/xie) and order/chaos (anping/luan) (Tarocco
2008: 43), the modern term introduced the novel notion of a plurality of
abstract entities belonging to a distinct sphere, indicating a separation from
the political as well as other realms. As Rebecca Nedostup (2009: 8) has argued,
“the notion of separating religion from politics, education, science, and so on”
was central to these transformations and “distinguished the realm of modern
religion, zongjiao, from the categorization jiao that had preceded it.” Drawing
on Kuo Ya-Pei (2010), Josephson argues that “to classify something in the cate-
gory ‘jiao’ did not place it in any analogous binary system” (Josephson 2015: 24).
While the notion of a plurality of different teachings was common and
mediated by a variety of different concepts in premodern China (Ford Campany
2003), zongjiao combined a novel imagination of plurality with the notion of a
separate sphere, indicating the rise of a number of new distinctions, which led
to deep fissures and a rearranging of the cultural landscape. One of the most
important distinctions involved mixin (“superstition,” Jap. meishin), a second
neologism adopted from Japan, which soon replaced the idea of heterodoxy
and was popularized by authors like Liang Qichao (1873–1929). The possibility
of stripping “good religion” from “harmful superstition” proved to be of central
importance for the cultural reforms initiated by the Chinese state in the twentieth
century (Nedostup 2009: 8). In the new situation around the turn of the cen-
tury, “each actor on the religious scene had to position himself in regard to the
zongjiao/mixin dichotomy” (Goossaert 2006: 321), leading to heavy controversy
around the distinction of pure ‘religion’ from ‘superstition’.
These new distinctions heavily affected what has been called “Chinese reli-
gion” (Goossaert 2005: 13)—a term which denotes an all-encompassing and
non-exclusive field of beliefs and practices, from body techniques to institu-
tionalized communities and sectarian movements. The transformed concept
of zongjiao served as “a powerful ideological tool that shaped and motivated a
brutal policy of destruction” (Goossaert 2005: 14–15). The zongjiao/mixin dis-
tinction in particular “brought about a radical, unprecedented break in the
religious field” (2005: 14–15). In the early twentieth century, it led to the estab-
lishment of a list of five ‘religions’ recognized by the state (Catholicism,
Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and Taoism), although other groups were
later also acknowledged. In the eyes of the state, ‘religion’ was seen as accept-
able, whereas ‘superstition’ was hindering progress and had to be eradicated.
Separating one from the other proved to be a difficult task, determining policy
on the ground and leading to the destruction of temples as well as bans on ritu-
als and festivals (Goossaert 2005: 15).
In response to these state-led attempts at broad cultural transformation,
Buddhist activists were especially successful in reinventing themselves. Pre
senting ‘Buddhism’ as a modern ‘religion’ opposed to ‘superstition’, they were
able to deflect most of the ire of the anti-superstition campaigns. Especially
around the turn of the century, the term zongjiao carried connotations that
privileged the practices and beliefs of religious professionals—in particular
Buddhist clerics and Christian pastors and priests—and conveyed a sense of
institutional organization (Barrett and Tarocco 2011). In the debates among reli-
gious activists steeped in Buddhist traditions, ‘Buddhism’ was separated from
‘Chinese religion’ in general and re-created as a member of the novel category of
zongjiao rather than being understood as outmoded ‘superstition’ (mixin).
As we have seen, the emergence of zongjiao led to significant shifts in dis-
cursive practice, the establishment of novel concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘supersti-
tion’, as well as to a variety of attempts by the modern state to reorganize the
cultural landscape. Even if it cannot be seen as a completely new ‘invention’,
zongjiao should therefore nevertheless be understood as an indication of the
emergence of the ‘discourse of religion’ in modern China.
Japan
Adopted from classical Chinese, the compound shūkyō has, since the second
half of the nineteenth century, become established as the common Japanese
114 Hermann
translation of ‘religion’. The continuities and discontinuities in the use and

meaning of this term and its two characters—shū and kyō (Chin. zong and
jiao)—in Japan are currently heavily debated (Reader 2004; Krämer 2009;
Josephson 2011). Early modern examples of the combination of shū (“sect,” “lin-
eage,” or “principle”) and kyō (“teaching/s”)—either referring to the “principles
of the teachings” or the “teachings of a sect”—occurred mostly in connection
with Buddhist textual traditions (Josephson 2011: 591). However, premodern
usage neither indicated a broad generic term nor pointed to a systematic way
of distinguishing different members of such a category. Rather, words like shū,
kyō, ha, or shūmon “were used interchangeably to designate Christianity, divi-
sions within Buddhism, distinctions between Daoism and Confucianism, and
different strands of intellectual thought (such as different schools of painting
or mathematics)” (Josephson 2006: 144).
Transformations in the nineteenth century occurred as part of a transna-
tional exchange (since the Japanese term was coined by drawing on the
Chinese zongjiao), a development that—as we have seen—itself influenced
debates in China, where this new usage was re-adapted. Shūkyō first came into
general use as a translation for ‘religion’ in the late 1860s in connection with
the religious tolerance sought for foreign missionaries, the equivalence becom-
ing well established over the following years (Barrett and Tarocco 2011).
Translating the German Religionsübung as well as the English “exercise of reli-
gion,” it was used in an 1869 maritime trade treaty (Yu 2005: 9). However, the
same decade also saw a longer process of translingual practice, as various ter-
minologies were explored in order to find a feasible equivalent (cf. Josephson
2012: 71–93 for earlier attempts at translating ‘religion’ in the context of inter-
national treaties). These debates, in which the terms chosen to translate ‘reli-
gion’ could refer to foreign customs, a quasi-synonym for Christianity, a
sub-form of Shinto, or a specific set of practices, point to the puzzlement con-
fronting Japanese translators tasked with finding an equivalent for the Western
term. Drawing the boundaries of the category as well as identifying various
‘religions’ as belonging to the category was not easy, even if Christianity was
generally agreed to belong to it (Josephson 2011: 593).
The usage adopted for shūkyō served to satisfy treaty demands as well as to
mark its separation from and therefore noncompetitive relationship to the
state’s imperial ritual (Nedostup 2009: 7). Guaranteeing ‘freedom of religion’,
the state’s adoption of this novel discourse served to exclude State Shinto from
the category of ‘religion’ as well as to institute the additional notion of ‘super-
stition’ (meishin), which was applied inter alia to the popular practices of
female mediums and indigenous shamans working with various supernatural
entities, who thus could not claim protection under the newly established
t oleration (Josephson 2011: 594). Soon, the new category came to include not
only Christianity and Judaism, but Buddhism as well, indicating radical trans-
formations of doctrine, the restructuring of sects, and the adoption of the term
bukkyō (“Buddhist teachings”) instead of the older buppō (“Buddhist law”).
Confucianism, however, did not become designated as shūkyō, which mirrored
developments in China (Josephson 2006: 144).
The adoption of shūkyō by the state served political and juridical needs. In
Chapter 12 in this volume, Mitsutoshi Horii pays special attention to the ways
in which shūkyō was established and thought of as a ‘private realm’. Delimiting
it as a “particular type of interiority” (Josephson 2012: 21) in this way provided
the state with a means to control its acceptable expressions while at the same
time proclaiming ‘freedom of religion’. During the consolidation of Japan as a
nation-state, the new concept allowed for the separation of a national moral
system of Shinto from Buddhist traditions. The equivalence of shūkyō and
‘religion’ served to model the idea of the ‘freedom of religion’ on Christianity,
particularly Protestantism, as characterized by doctrines, beliefs, and organi-
zational belonging. In this way, it was possible to maintain a separate status for
Shinto, which was conceptualized not as a ‘religion’ but as a system of state
rituals (Fujiwara 2008: 195; Josephson 2012: 94–163). The establishment of
shūkyō in nineteenth-century Japan allowed Japanese officials to present ‘reli-
gion’ as a discrete space of belief, mainly for Christianity and certain forms of
Buddhism (Josephson 2006: 163). Buddhist intellectuals such as Inoue Enryō
(1858–1919) contributed to these discursive transformations by expanding the
category and carving out ‘Buddhism’ as a legitimate example of ‘religion’ by
separating it from ‘superstition’. However, while often making use of refer-
ences to ‘science’ in distinguishing ‘true religion’ from various forms of ‘super-
stition’, Inoue did not rely solely on their presumed conflict with ‘science’.
Buddhas, bodhisattvas, kami, gods, ancestor spirits, and angels were thus not
designated as ‘superstitions’, a category which, for Inoue, did not include all of
the supernatural, but only monstrous and evil creatures. Nevertheless, in order
to envision Buddhism as a ‘religion’, he abandoned Buddhist cosmology,
prayers, and miracles, as well as other material implications of Buddhist tex-
tual traditions. In the same vein, Enryō considered belief rather than a set of
practices to be the core of this new Buddhism, turning it into a series of propo-
sitions (Josephson 2006: 152–163).
As argued by James Ketelaar (1990: 41–42), the newly translated terms intro-
duced in nineteenth-century Japan—which not only included shūkyō as an
equivalent for ‘religion’, but also new terms for ‘politics’, ‘philosophy’, and ‘eco-
nomics’ as well—brought with them profound discursive transformations.
New distinctions led to the construction of ‘religion’ “by means of a series of
116 Hermann
negative definitions of religion in order to ‘separate’ religion from all other

major conceptual fields” (Ketelaar 1990: 41). And just as this ‘religion’ was set
into opposition to ‘politics’, ‘education’, ‘science’, and the Imperial authority,
the individual members of this novel category were equally defined through
mutual exclusions, conceptualized as different ‘religions’ by being compared
to and distinguished from one another.
The ways in which shūkyō was reconfigured in the post-1945 transformation
of Japan are detailed in the third section of Horii’s chapter in the present vol-
ume. This included an extension of the category beyond Christianity,
Buddhism, and sectarian Shinto, with the term also being applied to the (for-
merly ‘secular’) Shrine Shinto as well as to other “faith groups” (as Horii calls
them), which were previously described as ‘evil cults’. From the perspective of
the ‘distinctions of religion’ I have suggested above, these changes could be
understood as a reconfiguring of the ‘differentiation’ and ‘purification’ dimen-
sions in the context of the ‘global discourse of religion’.
Burma
In the colonies of the British Empire, the nineteenth century was, just as in
East Asia, a period of profound discursive transformations regarding ‘religion’.
In Burma, the new terms bada (“religion”) and botdabada (“Buddhism”) point
to a reconfiguration of local and specifically Buddhist identities (Houtman
1990; Kirichenko 2009). While pre-colonial usage stressed a clear separation
between monks and laity and referred to a specific collection of practices, the
modern concept of bada denotes a complex system of teachings (Kirichenko
2009: 23). These new semantics complement, transform, or even displace ear-
lier concepts centered around dhamma and thathana (Skrt. sāsana). While the
modern discourse implies a system of doctrine as well as a common collective
identity, the indigenous discourse focused on a hierarchical order, and social sta-
tus played an important role in determining identity and practice (Kirichenko
2009: 25). While pre-colonial thathana was treated as sui generis and was not
seen as comparable (Kirichenko 2009: 31), bada appears in the plural, with
botabada as a member of the same category as Hinduism, Christianity, and
Islam (Kirichenko 2009: 35).
The development of this new discourse can partly be traced back to mis-
sionary activity, as new terms were coined in translations of Christian texts
and sermons and later picked up by the colonial administration. At the same
time, indigenous adaptation of the new terms secured their wide diffusion and
importance. Being used in the names of a number of the newly founded
Buddhist associations around 1900, as well as in the titles of publications, bada
and botdabada further rose to prominence through the 1906 founding of the
Kalyana-yuwa-botdabada-athin (“Young Men’s Buddhist Association”). This

association’s central role in the emerging Buddhist national movement turned
botdabada into a central concept of identification for the Burmese (Kirichenko
2009: 33–34). Likewise, the category ‘religion’ was constantly deployed by
the colonial authorities, profoundly affecting Buddhist discourse. At the
same time, Buddhist reformers and the laity, in negotiating and contesting
the expectations of the colonial state about the boundaries and nature of
‘religion’—especially through the medium of journals and newspapers—not
only contributed to the emergence of these new categories, but also to a con-
solidation of ‘Buddhism’ as a ‘religion’ (Turner 2014).
Ceylon
For nineteenth-century Ceylon, another British colony, various discursive
transformations leading to the establishment of ‘religion’ as a novel category
have been traced (Carter 1993; Malalgoda 1997; Scott 1999). Though the exact
premodern usage and meaning of terms like sāsana (“instruction” or “admoni-
tion” as well as “institution”) and bauddha-samaya (“Buddhist thought”) is
hard to pinpoint, the nineteenth century saw the introduction of āgama and
buddhāgama as equivalents for “religion” and “Buddhism,” respectively (Carter
1993: 11–17). Probably first popularized by Christian missionaries in the British
period, these terms were soon taken up by Buddhist activists and indigenous
elites more generally (Scott 1999: 57).
As āgama was established as the most common Singhalese equivalent for
“religion” in the second half of the nineteenth century, its old meanings of
“authoritative text” and “established discipline” were transformed (Carter 1993:
17). Often used in the debates between Christian and Buddhist representatives
from the 1860s to the 1880s, the new usage indicates a clash between two enti-
ties, “Christianity” (kristiyāni āgama) and “Buddhism” (buddhāgama). Here,
āgama appeared in both singular and plural forms, as the “truth” and “falsity”
of these “religions” was disputed, with Christianity called “a deceitful religion”
and Buddhism described as “a true religion” (Carter 1993: 19). Even though the
history of equating “religion” and āgama can probably be traced back even
further, these debates served to popularize the new terms (Carter 1993: 19).
Used in this sense by Christian missionaries and colonial authorities, āgama
was also picked up by the growing indigenous elite, as indicated by an 1886
English translation prepared by the administrative assistant E.R. Goonaratne,
who translated the compound āgamatthakathāsu as “in the Commentaries of
the religion” (Carter 1993: 18). These changes in the Sinhala “conceptual appa-
ratus” not only produced a conceptual space of ‘religion’, but also made it avail-
able for political and ideological appropriations (Scott 1999: 58). As ‘Buddhists’
118 Hermann
belonging to the ‘religion of Buddhism’, monks now found themselves in a situ-

ation in which colonial power and new categories had restructured the social
and political field and “obliged them too to reconstitute themselves as mem-
bers of one exclusive ‘religious’ community against others” (Scott 1999: 56).
This short overview of discursive transformations regarding ‘religion’ and
‘Buddhism’ in South, Southeast, and East Asia makes visible diverse historical
paths and a variety of different changes. The complex pre-colonial and pre-
modern cultural landscapes are reconfigured and set in relation to a develop-
ing ‘global discourse of religion’. Though a number of commonalities can be
identified, the local establishment of equivalents of ‘religion’ varies regionally
in drawing upon older semantic traditions in the different languages and cul-
tures. While more detailed discussions of questions of continuity and discon-
tinuity must be left to detailed local studies, it is clear that the premodern
discursive worlds of Asia have been profoundly affected and transformed by
the emergence of a ‘global discourse of religion’ since the second half of the
nineteenth century. Some premodern discursive traditions were constituted as
one of the ‘religions’, as was the case for ‘Buddhism’ (Almond 1988; King 1999;
Masuzawa 2005), while others were not; and virtually everywhere, ‘religion’
was turned into an important concept of state policy (Dubois 2005).
Conclusion
This chapter has attempted to address a key question in the development of a

discourse theoretical study of religion: How can we theorize a ‘global discourse
of religion’ and advance the current debate about equivalents of ‘religion’ in
non-Western languages and cultures, while avoiding the pitfalls and circular
reasoning often displayed in the existing literature? As I have argued above,
this especially concerns the basic question of how to conceptualize the unity
of a ‘global discourse’. An answer to this question is necessary if we want to
continue to meaningfully speak of ‘religion’ as a ‘global category’, as well as of
a ‘global discourse of religion’, thereby indicating that there is something that
connects discourses of religion (including its variants in European languages—
for example, religione or religião) and discourses of (for example) zongjiao,
shūkyō, bada, and āgama, beyond the mere fact that they are the products and
producers of ‘discursive entanglements’.
The first step towards such an answer lies in fundamentally reconfiguring
current approaches that focus on proving the existence (or lack) of non-Western
or premodern ‘equivalents of religion’. Drawing on Lydia H. Liu’s notion of
“translingual practice,” I have suggested that we reconceptualize this search for
‘non-Western equivalents’ as an investigation of the historical process of the

making of hypothetical equivalences. Accompanying this change in perspec-
tive, and by returning to Michel Foucault’s central notion of a discourse’s “rules
of formation,” I have argued that the unity of the ‘global discourse of religion’
can be found in three contested distinctions of religion as this discourse’s ‘rules
of formation’. These three distinctions—between one ‘religion’ and another,
between ‘religion’ and its doppelgangers, and between ‘religion’ and other
societal spheres—are at work in the emergence of a ‘global discourse of
religion’ through comparison, purification, and differentiation. If we look for
these characteristics, we can see how, in processes of translingual practice,
equivalents of ‘religion’ have been established in Asian contexts and also
transformed as novel terms for ‘Buddhism’ have emerged, as I have shown in
regard to discursive transformations in China, Japan, Burma, and Ceylon since
the nineteenth century.
Such an approach will allow us to describe the emergence of a ‘global dis-
course of religion’ through processes of translingual practice and to identify
the unity of this global discourse across languages and cultures as a number of
distinctions of religion. However, what I propose here is not a simply a global
homogenization and the worldwide ‘implementation’ of a ‘Western concept of
religion’. Instead of speaking (for example) of the ‘global spread of a Western
concept’, focusing on the many different local results of the establishment
of ‘equivalents of religion’ in processes of translingual practice and the con-
stant contestedness of the ‘distinctions of religion’—despite their global
hegemony—enables us to understand both of these aspects as the condition
of possibility for this global but at the same time highly unstable ‘discourse of
religion’, which has emerged over the course of the last two centuries.
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chapter 6
Discourse on ‘Religion’ in Organizing Social

Practices: Theoretical and Practical Considerations
Teemu Taira
The anthropologist Talal Asad once stated in an interview: “So what one has to
look for, in other words, is the ways in which, as circumstances change, people
constantly try, as it were, to gather together elements they think belong, or
should belong, to the notion of religion. People use particular conceptions of
religion in social life” (Asad 2002). Consider another quote. Sociologist of reli-
gion James A. Beckford writes on the opening page of Social Theory and Religion
that “disputes about what counts as religion, and attempts to devise new ways
of controlling what is permitted under the label of religion have all increased”
(Beckford 2003: 1).
The first quote exemplifies the general approach that sees claims to have
(or not to have) a religion in organizing social practices as relevant objects of
study. The second quote suggests that such claims—and the disputes that
follow—have increased. The modern category of religion is part of everyday
discourse, and many individuals, groups, and institutions use some kind of
criteria in demarcating what counts as religion for various purposes.
However, at the same time, the boundaries of the category of ‘religion’ are
superfluous. In the spirit of the quote by Asad, the main purpose of this
chapter is to argue that studying how discourses on ‘religion’ operate in orga-
nizing social practices in contemporary societies is an important part of the
study of how discourses operate more generally as well as a relevant part of
the study of religion.
I will demonstrate this by suggesting that many versions of discursive
approaches can be used—depending on the project, the specific questions,
and the data. One of the key distinctions is between ‘historical-leaning’ and
‘textual-leaning’ approaches, as explained later in this chapter. Another dis-
tinction is between what I call ‘religious discourse’ and ‘discourse on religion’.
These are not four completely different approaches, but rather two pairs map-
ping some of the relevant methodological issues in doing discursive study. The
most significant approach for the purposes of this chapter is ‘discourse on reli-
gion’ because it does not use scholarly definitions of religion, but rather studies
what counts as religion and how such classifications organize social practices.

126 Taira
It can be combined with historical-leaning or textual-leaning approaches, but

it highlights some aspects that these approaches do not necessarily see as rel-
evant. Furthermore, by focusing on two empirical examples—statements
about the religiosity of Confucianism in China and Jediism in Britain—this
chapter suggests that we are witnessing a reflexive moment in the negotiations
of the boundaries of discourse on ‘religion’ and that ‘religion’ is a multifunc-
tional category in the ways in which it is put into practice in society (i.e., decid-
ing who gets tax exemptions, special protection under the law, voice and
representation in the media and public institutions). In other words, individu-
als, groups, and institutions are forced to rethink what counts as religion or
what is permitted under the label of religion. This facilitates possibilities for
openly strategic uses in claiming to have a religion (as exemplified in the activ-
ities of The Missionary Church of Kopimism, Discordianism, and Pastafari
anism), and these uses have different functions for different actors. Therefore,
the existing canon of studies of the modern emergence of the discourse on
‘religion’ needs to be supplemented by examining recent instances in which
people and institutions classify groups and practices as ‘religious’ or deny the
religiosity of a group or practice.
Historical-leaning and Textual-leaning Discursive Approaches
There are a variety of approaches that have been called discursive. Some of
them are theories, some are methods, and some are general research frame-
works. Discursive approaches are interested in the productive nature of dis-
courses, particularly intradiscursive, interdiscursive, and extradiscursive relations
and the ability of discourses to systematically form the objects of which they
speak (Foucault 2002; see also Taira 2013a: 32). Generally, discourse is under-
stood as consisting of statements that operate repeatedly together in forming
relatively stable—but changing and changeable—meaning systems that are
most effective when entangled in institutions.
Here I shall simplify the wide field by focusing on some key distinctions
between various approaches. One relatively important distinction is between
historical-leaning and textual-leaning approaches. In the study of religion,
these are exemplified in Kocku von Stuckrad’s recent writings (2013; 2014) and
Titus Hjelm’s (2011) introductory chapter on discourse analysis as a method for
analyzing data (see also their respective contributions in this volume).1 While
1 The word ‘leaning’ has been added to remind readers that the distinction between the two
is not categorical (see also Hjelm [Chapter 1] and von Stuckrad [Chapter 9] in this volume).
Discourse on ‘Religion’ in Organizing Social Practices 127
von Stuckrad highlights the historical narratives in how discourse on religion

operates and prefers to write about a “discursive research perspective” (von
Stuckrad 2014: 15) rather than discourse analysis as a method, Hjelm’s approach
more closely follows discourse analytical methods that were developed for
analyzing linguistic features of texts in detail. Outside the study of religion,
this distinction corresponds relatively well with the difference between Michel
Foucault’s (2002) and Norman Fairclough’s (1992) writings concerning dis-
course and its study. To put it in simple terms, the former focused on historical,
large-scale discursive frameworks, whereas the latter has specialized in close
reading of texts’ linguistic features and their connections with power relations.
I have argued elsewhere (Taira forthcoming) that their differences are obvious—
Fairclough (1992) has stated them quite clearly in his own writings—but that
does not make their projects fully exclusive of each other.
Fairclough’s version is indebted to Foucault, particularly in seeing discourse
as a constitutive element of society, emphasising how discourses and institu-
tions are interdependent, refusing to accept “individualistic emphasis upon
the rhetorical strategies of speakers” (Fairclough 1992: 25), and being interested
in analyzing power relations and “the effects of discursive practice upon social
identity” (Fairclough 1992: 45). Some of their theoretical differences are strik-
ing and important, especially as Fairclough (1992) brings back the concept of
ideology that Foucault (2001: 119) rejected.2 Other relevant and related issues
In my view, they form a continuum in which one approach is closer to a historical and the
other closer to a textual one. Furthermore, I use the term ‘historical’ because von Stuckrad
labels his Foucauldian-based approach accordingly. This is not the only option for naming
Foucault’s approach (cf. Mills [1997] on Foucauldian “discourse theory”), and it does not
mean that “textual” approaches are not historical at all (or that historical approaches are not
based on analyzing texts). In fact, von Stuckrad, while being inspired by Foucault, borrows
the term “historical discourse analysis” from historians such as Philipp Sarasin and Achim
Landwehr. Furthermore, there are other examples of discursive approaches in the study of
religion that derive from Foucault, Derrida, and Said, among others, but label themselves
differently. One example is Tim Murphy’s excellent analysis of phenomenology of religion’s
embeddedness in colonialist meaning-systems via Dilthey’s reading of Hegel. Murphy (2010:
35) calls his approach “postcolonial-genealogical reading strategy.”
2 It is notable that the concept of ideology remains relatively unreflected in the discursive
study of religion. For instance, Hjelm (2011: 134) suggests that critical discourse analysis
focuses on ideology, but he does not scrutinize the Foucauldian critique of the concept or
consider the option that critical approaches could do without the concept of ideology (see
also Hjelm in this volume). Furthermore, Bruce Lincoln, Timothy Fitzgerald, and Russell T.
McCutcheon—all relevant for the discursive study of religion—do not explore the concept
of ideology in detail or question it in their otherwise important work (see Carrette 2013:
128 Taira
concern truth, power, practice, and critique.3 However, I see the choice between
these approaches as pragmatic, and I also see possibilities for new approaches
that combine useful aspects of both. If one’s project is suitable for a large-scale
historical approach, then Foucault’s version is appropriate. If one needs tools
for analyzing a limited number of texts in detail, then Fairclough provides con-
cepts from linguistics and the study of rhetoric with which one can proceed.
Furthermore, if one is interested in media as an institution with specific prac-
tices, and if one uses media material as data, as is common among scholars
who adopt one of the discursive approaches, then the work of Fairclough and
his followers focusing on the media is likely to be effective. Moreover, Fairc
lough’s pedagogical distinction between three levels of analysis—textual fea-
tures, discursive practices (e.g., genres and habits in the production of texts in
various institutions), and social practices (the relationship between discourse
and society, often leading to speculation about how the analyzed text is entan-
gled in power relations)—makes his version relatively accessible (Fairclough
1995a; Richardson 2007).
Fairclough is known for developing critical discourse analysis (cda). This
means that he is not content with simply describing discourses, but he has an
210–11 note 3). For a useful comparison of ideology critique and discourse theory, see Mills
1997: 29–47.
3 This is not the place for a comprehensive comparison of Foucault and Fairclough—especially
as I want to highlight the possibility of being pragmatic about these methods—but Fairclough
(1992: 56–61) himself criticized Foucault with regard to “relativism”, an overly broad concept
of power and “the absence of a concept of practice.” While I am supportive of Fairclough’s
method, he has not proven to be a very sensitive interpreter of Foucault. Furthermore, it is
possible to raise serious criticism of Fairclough’s own concepts. Foucault’s interest was in
analyzing truth claims—how discourses produce truth effects—which is not the same as
“relativism,” whereas Fairclough’s insistence on truth beyond discourses may fail to prob-
lematize the status of the scientific knowledge that the discourse analyst produces. Foucault’s
concept of power relates to the strategic situation that must be explained, and marginal
groups contribute to the situation, whereas Fairclough often maps power onto dominant
groups and assumes “an a priori argument that capitalism and class form the major oppres-
sion in our lives” (Pennycook 2001: 92). Some commentators on Foucault, such as Kai
Alhanen, Thomas R. Flynn, Frédéric Gros, John Rajchman, and Paul Veyne, see “practice” as a
key concept in his oeuvre since The Archaeology of Knowledge (see especially Alhanen 2007),
whereas Fairclough (1992: 57) maintains that Foucault focuses on structures and extrapolates
practice from structures. Despite the fact that both Foucault and Fairclough are interested in
showing how things could be otherwise, Foucault’s style of critique was more immanent, and
Fairlough’s is closer to a transcendent model (see Curtis 2014). In other words, Foucault pro-
vided genealogies in order to open new possibilities for the present situation, and Fairclough
(1995b) argues that judgments are based on truth.
interest in analyzing power relations and demonstrating how hegemonic dis-

courses are contingent. This critical aspect is the one he shares with Foucault.
However, when his work is juxtaposed with Foucault’s, it is helpful to remem-
ber that the other label for his analysis is ‘textually oriented discourse analysis’
(toda). The latter label highlights the difference between him and Foucault:
Foucault was not interested in analyzing texts in detail using the terminology
of linguistics. This difference is also clear in von Stuckrad’s assessment of Hjelm’s
earlier work, when von Stuckrad suggests that a discursive research perspec-
tive does not need to use discourse analysis as a method. While I agree with
him, this does not mean that discourse analysis cannot be used. It can even be
a preferred option, depending on the research design. Therefore, I find it sur-
prising that von Stuckrad implies that discourse analysis is not part of the typi-
cal arsenal of methods in the discursive study of religion and lists eight other
methods instead (von Stuckrad 2014: 18). In any case, choosing between vari-
ous discursive approaches as well as methods by which to put the chosen
approach into practice can be done on the basis of the research questions and
the data.
‘Religious Discourse’ and Discourse on ‘Religion’
Rather than writing extensively about the differences between von Stuckrad
and Hjelm or Foucault and Fairclough, I have identified another—and for my
purposes more important—distinction between discursive approaches in the
study of religion. This distinction is between ‘religious discourse’ and discourse
on ‘religion’.
The first approach defines what counts as religion and analyzes its constitu-
ent parts, its key distinctions, and its functions in society at large. An example of
this approach is the work of Bruce Lincoln, whose analysis of ‘religious discourse’
starts by specifying what is distinctive in such discourse. He suggests that reli-
gious discourse is unlike all others, because ‘religions’ claim to have “more-than-
human origin, status and authority” (Lincoln 2012: 5). Brent Nongbri argues that
Lincoln’s notion of religious discourse raises the question of how one can know
what counts as religious if one has yet to define religion (Nongbri 2013: 164; see
also Fitzgerald 2006: 420). However, religion, according to Lincoln, is “discourse
whose defining characteristic is its desire to speak of things eternal and tran-
scendent with an authority equally transcendent and eternal” (Lincoln 2012: 1).
Lincoln’s choice to start with the definition of religion in analyzing ‘religious
discourse’ is a problem if one thinks that analytical definitions of religion are
not useful and should be abandoned altogether. Conceptualizing ‘religious
130 Taira
d iscourse’ by referring to a relatively standard definition of religion allows

Lincoln to write about the relation between religion and culture and use con-
cepts such as “religious conflict,” “religions of resistance,” and “religions of
revolution” and count how many “religious words and phrases” there are in bin
Laden’s and Bush’s speeches (Lincoln 2003). I believe many people find
Lincoln’s analyses so useful that standard definitions are worth pursuing.
However, for the purposes of this chapter, it is relevant to emphasize the differ-
ence between discursive approaches that use analytical definitions and discur-
sive approaches that study how the category is used and defined in organizing
social practices.
The starting point of the second type of discursive approach is to avoid ana-
lytical definitions of ‘religion’. Rather, the focus is on studying how something
comes to be classified as and called ‘religion’ and how it is connected to power
relations. Russell T. McCutcheon, for instance, argues that “the future of the
study of religion likely does not lie in searching for a more adequate or accu-
rate definition of religion; instead, it lies in the direction of a thoroughly self-
reflexive historicization of the very existence of this socio-cognitive category,
regardless of its definition” (McCutcheon 2003: 235, emphasis original). Together
with William Arnal, McCutcheon suggests that “the academic future of reli-
gion as a concept will need to focus on deconstructing the category and analys-
ing its function within popular discourse” (Arnal and McCutcheon 2013: 28).
Another proponent of this approach is Timothy Fitzgerald, who has argued
that analytical definitions of religion should be discarded. In The Ideology of
Religious Studies (2000), he proposed that religious studies should be recon-
ceived as one way of doing cultural studies. This would include dropping ‘reli-
gion’ from our analytical vocabulary and using concepts such as ritual, politics,
and soteriology instead. In his later work, Fitzgerald has rejected the solution
of replacing this one key concept with the others mentioned in The Ideology of
Religious Studies and has rather analyzed how the category of religion has been
used and understood in English-language historical documents (Fitzgerald
2007) and in the discipline of International Relations (Fitzgerald 2011).4
4 Paul Hedges misses this point in his criticism of Fitzgerald, as he mistakes Fitzgerald’s terms—
such as “encompassing religion” and “privatized religion”—for analytical terms (Hedges 2014:
147–48) rather than descriptions of how the understanding of the category has changed in
the Anglophone world between the former and the latter. Furthermore, even if one wanted
to defend Fitzgerald’s earlier concepts of soteriology, ritual, and politics, Hedges’ (2014:
146–47) reading of Fitzgerald is not precise. He suggests that Fitzgerald’s need for concepts
that somehow resemble ‘religion’ supports the conclusion that ‘religion’ is no less useful as a
category than ‘soteriology’ or ‘sacred’—a concept Fitzgerald (2000: 18–19; 2007: 72) finds ana-
lytically meaningful. This interpretation misses the key idea Fitzgerald proposes: ‘soteriology’
The differences between the two approaches are most visible in the debate
between Lincoln and Fitzgerald that took place in Method and Theory in the
Study of Religion in 2006 and 2007 (Fitzgerald 2006; Lincoln 2007). Fitzgerald’s
(2006: 393) criticism starts from the point of view of a “critical approach to the
very idea of ‘religion’, the category itself, and its actual usages” and finds that
dimension lacking in Lincoln’s otherwise (mostly) high-quality scholarship.5
To this particular point, Lincoln (2007: 164) responds that, despite his familiar-
ity with the criticism concerning the category of religion, he continues to
employ the term, as if defining religion is the only way forward. At least he does
not hint at other possibilities, which I want to highlight by differentiating his
approach concerning ‘religious discourse’ from discourse on ‘religion’.
Despite the difference proposed here, there are plenty of overlapping con-
cerns between the two approaches. They are exemplified in McCutcheon’s very
positive comments on Lincoln’s work (e.g., McCutcheon 2003: 213–29).
Furthermore, Lincoln’s methodological questions are almost identical to the
concerns of those who study discourse on ‘religion’. Such questions include:
What is accomplished by classifying something as ‘religion’? By whom and for
what purpose? Who is for it, and who is against it? What institutional structures
are necessary for discourses to be effective? Or, as Lincoln himself puts it: “Who
is trying to persuade whom of what in this text? In what context is the attempt
situated, and what are the consequences should it succeed?” (Lincoln 2012: 5).
To elide the differences further, scholars sometimes admit that, despite
their own interest in studying discourses on ‘religion’, there may be good rea-
sons to use religion heuristically as a second-order concept by giving provi-
sional definitions for the purpose of a particular research project, even if only
after careful retooling (Arnal and McCutcheon 2013: 120; Martin 2010: 27–28;
Nongbri 2013: 158–59). Personally, I do not find it impossible for a scholar to use
religion as an analytical category for particular research projects and study dis-
courses on ‘religion’ in other projects; the main point is to argue that studying
discourses on ‘religion’ without employing any definition of religion is a signifi-
cant part of the study of religion, because ‘religion’ is a tool employed in orga-
nizing social practices.
By stating the differences between these two approaches, I am constructing
the position I prefer and find useful. Only some types of discursive approaches
and ‘sacred’ do not divide the world into religious and (nonreligious) secular practices or
phenomena, and therein lies their potential usefulness for Fitzgerald.
5 There are other aspects Fitzgerald considers worth criticizing in Lincoln’s work, but they are
not as relevant for the purposes of this chapter.
132 Taira
in the study of religion focus on the category of religion and what is accom-
plished by negotiating and demarcating what counts as ‘religious’ in particular
contexts. There are many exemplary studies on the historical formation of the
modern category ‘religion’, by Talal Asad, David Chidester, Daniel Dubuisson,
Timothy Fitzgerald, Tomoko Masuzawa, Russell T. McCutcheon, and many
others. These studies have suggested that the modern discourse on ‘religion’
emerged as part of colonialism and nationalism. In the context of colonialism,
religion—especially the lack of it—was used to define the nature of “primi-
tives,” to separate them from “civilized” people, and to justify the conquering of
“uncivilized” people (Chidester 1996; Fitzgerald 2007). In the context of the rise
of nation-states, religion was a category utilized in creating a peripheral space
separate from the political sphere. It domesticated forms of utopian social and
collective action that were at odds with the state by labelling them as private
issues (see Arnal and McCutcheon 2013: 60–61; McCutcheon 2005). The main
attitude in many of these studies is deconstructive. They aim to demonstrate
how the category of religion emerged as part of power relations, suggesting
that scholars should be cautious and thoroughly self-reflexive in using the
category—if it is used at all in analytical vocabulary. I share these concerns,
but I want to highlight that we also need studies that address recent cases.
Hence, my purpose is to add to this emerging research tradition, but also to
change the focus to ongoing struggles on a smaller scale. While many studies
pay attention to the historical emergence of the category ‘religion’ as an intel-
lectual idea of the literate elite and speculate about how this has had an impact
as part of the power relations in nationalism, colonialism, imperialism, and
modernity, small-scale studies have the advantage of being able to demon-
strate more directly what concrete consequences classifying something as ‘reli-
gion’ has in a limited context.
Scholars who study how groups and practices are recognized as ‘religious’
have not always used discourse analysis as their method (in the way it is
described as a method in textbooks) or spent much time exploring the concept
of discourse in their publications. Rather, discourse is often used as a loose
operator, referring to practices that systematically form the objects of which
they speak, following one of Foucault’s many characterizations of discourse.
This highlights the idea that the object is formed in discourse and there is no
anterior ‘thing’, no religion before discourse(s) on ‘religion’. Hence, defining
religion in a way that might allow one to conclude that this or that is or is not
a religion does not do any good.
So far, the aim of this chapter has been to map some of the variety of discur-
sive approaches and highlight a version that does not use analytical definitions
of religion but sees all claims concerning religion equally as objects of study.
Foucauldian and Faircloughian approaches, as represented in the writings of

von Stuckrad and Hjelm, among others, are not highlighting this aspect. This is
not to criticize their approaches, but rather to argue that there are other
approaches that remain hidden if the discussion is limited to differences
between historical-leaning and textual-leaning approaches. In order to dem-
onstrate the importance of my preferred approach, I shall introduce two cases.
They are chosen to include one example from outside the modern ‘West’, indi-
cating that contemporary disputes concerning ‘religion’ are relevant (almost)
globally, and one from Europe, suggesting that the discourse is not fully stable
even in Europe, where it was developed a couple of hundreds of years ago.
Confucianism in China
Confucianism has been a special or borderline case when it comes to whether

it has been counted as ‘religion’ or as part of the so-called world religions. Its
status as a ‘religion’ has never been fully established beyond early construc-
tions in nineteenth-century Western scholarship. For instance, the earliest
formulations of Confucianism in general date back to 1862. It was named the
ancient religion of China by the Sinologist James Legge in 1877, soon after he
was appointed the first professor of Chinese at Oxford University, but even
today the Chinese government does not classify it as a religion (Sun 2013).
These processes have been explored in Confucianism as a World Religion by
Anna Sun, who undertook the double task of studying both the historical con-
struction of Confucianism as a religion and recent Chinese attempts to claim
its status as a religion.
Sun’s study focuses on the latter part of the nineteenth century, particularly
on the writings and other pursuits of James Legge and Friedrich Max Müller.
Her study traces the historical formation of Confucianism as a religion in
Western scholarship, particularly at Oxford, where both Legge and Müller
taught. Legge argued that Confucianism was a religion, overcoming his oppo-
nents by taking the controversy from one field (the missionary circle) to
another (the science of religion/comparative religion, which was then in for-
mation). He also received support from Müller, for whom Legge’s argument
was useful in promoting his own ideas concerning the science of religion.
Confucianism was included in Müller’s classification of eight world religions in
1891. This was followed by the convening of the first World Parliament of
Religions in Chicago in 1893, where Confucianism was represented among the
other ‘world religions’. Therefore, the historical formation of Confucianism as
a religion is deeply connected to the history of comparative religion, the legitimacy
134 Taira
of which was one of the reasons behind the inclusion of Confucianism in the
categories of religion and world religion. This process was not limited to
Europe, as it affected China’s discourse on religion. Currently the Chinese word
jiao (or zongjiao) is often translated as “religion,” but this did not start until the
late nineteenth century or the beginning of the twentieth century. Previously
jiao meant “teaching” and zong referred to a pictogram of an ancestral altar
(Adler 2005: 1580). Before Confucianism was classified as a religion by Western
scholars, encounters between Jesuits and Chinese people in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries solidified Confucian teachings (Jensen 1997). While
these can be seen as a precursor to the classification of Confucianism as a reli-
gion and a contributing factor to the formation of Confucian identity, they do
not yet represent examples of Confucianism as a religion.
Confucianism was later regarded as a religion in China, but when the
Communists took power in China in 1949, they established the current system,
in which only Buddhism, Daoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Islam are
considered religions. This is contrary to the situation in Indonesia and Hong
Kong, where Confucianism is part of the official classification of religions.
According to Sun (2013), the current situation in China is complex. While many
people participate in ancestral worship, only 12 out of 7021 people in a recent
survey claimed to be Confucians (“Empirical Studies of Religion in China;” see
Sun 2013: xiii–xiv). Furthermore, Confucian practices are not exclusive; people
may also participate in Buddhist or Christian practices—both understood as
“religions” in China—and see no contradiction there. These examples demon-
strate that Confucianism does not fully align with what is regarded as typical
for a religion in modern Western discourse—that people identify with it and
consider it to be exclusive (“I am a Muslim, not a Christian”).6 However, lately
there have been attempts by various actors—from professors to television
personalities—to revitalize Confucianism as a religious identity. These include
a drive to establish it as the state religion in China, the goal being to provide
a backbone for a good and just society against the spread of Christianity in
6 I do not mean that the exclusivity of religious identification is a norm in practice, but that it
is part of modern discourse on religion. People identify themselves as “Quaker Pagans,
Buddhist Christians, Jewish Witches” (Harvey 2013: 38), and many others things as well; how-
ever, some groups accept only one identification, surveys on religious identification usually
assume that people will tick only one box, and in some countries people can be registered
members of only one religion. Finland is an interesting case: since August 2006, it has been
possible to be a registered member of more than one religion, but the groups can decide
whether they will accept double membership. For example, the dominant church, the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, does not allow double membership; thus it main-
tains the idea of exclusivity in its understanding of religion.
post-socialist China. According to examples given by Sun, the current situation

is far from settled: on one hand, claiming Confucianism as a religion may mar-
ginalize those who present the claims, but also provide protection and recogni-
tion; on the other hand, not classifying Confucianism as a religion opens
opportunities for stronger integration in state institutions and protection
under the label of “national heritage” in a relatively “antireligious” China, but
this includes the possibility that it will remain unrecognized.
One of the missed opportunities in Sun’s study is that her analysis of recent
struggles is not very profound. Another problem is that she focuses on the
question of whether it is legitimate to classify Confucianism as a religion, yet
she does not use this as a case study for exploring and questioning the category
of religion as such and reflecting on how various people and groups promote
their interests by classifying Confucianism. Despite her statement that the
study is not about “whether Confucianism is a religion” (Sun 2013: 8), she writes,
for example, about Confucianism possibly becoming “a real religious force”
(Sun 2013: xvi), about “the reality of Confucian religious life in China” (Sun 2013: xiv),
about “China’s ritual-rich religious life” (Sun 2013: 2), and about “a revival of
diverse religious ritual practices” (Sun 2013: 2). These examples show that the
author does not consistently follow the discursive approach proposed here and
assumes that there is such a thing as ‘religion’ in general. Despite this problem,
Sun addresses historical and contemporary examples that could be reread in
the light of the Foucauldian framework, highlighting the nexus of power/
knowledge in which the ‘religiosity’ of Confucianism has been constructed
and contested—both in Europe and in China—as part of various institutions
(including universities) over a long period of time. Some of the recent exam-
ples she mentions provide fruitful cases for Faircloughian cda/toda, in which
people argue for and against the ‘religious’ nature of Confucianism in a variety
of media. Both Western constructions and Chinese negotiations offer appro-
priate case studies for the question raised above regarding how social practices
are organized by employing the category of ‘religion’.
To summarize, Confucianism is a good example of the discourse on ‘reli-
gion’ because its formation as a ‘religion’ is connected with Western scholar-
ship, but at the same time the classification of Confucianism has deep
implications for Chinese society, both past and present. The instances when
claims have been made for its religiosity and when its classification has been
disputed have varied over time, both in China and elsewhere. Furthermore,
there is a term in the Chinese language that is translated as religion, but whose
historical meaning is not fully compatible with the modern category of reli-
gion: this can be seen as an example of a quite common development, in which
a local emic term (jiao) becomes linked with discourse on ‘religion’. Finally,
136 Taira
there are recent cases in which the ‘religiosity’ of Confucianism is negotiated

by various actors in order to improve their situation in society, thus demon-
strating that the ‘religiosity’ of Confucianism is not so much a question of
whether it really is a religion as it is of what the discourse on ‘religion’ may
accomplish. This is an ongoing struggle, taking place on many fronts, rather
than a discursive formation that is frozen in one moment in the late nineteenth
century.
Unemployed Jedi Knight in Britain7
In March 2010, Chris Jarvis, a 31-year-old English benefits claimant, visited the
Jobcentre in Southend in southeast England in order to look at available vacan-
cies. He was wearing a hooded top in the Jobcentre, and he was asked repeat-
edly to remove it. Mr. Jarvis argued that wearing a hood was part of his Jedi
religion. He was escorted from the premises by the security guards, but he
made an official complaint, and three days later the personnel at the center
apologized to him. The printed apology from the Jobcentre Plus manager
stated: “I was sorry to hear of your recent experience and have investigated the
issue you have raised. Jobcentre Plus is committed to provide a customer ser-
vice which embraces diversity and respects a customer’s religion or belief.
I would like to apologise that on this occasion you were asked to remove your
hood which you have stated is not acceptable as part of your religious belief”
(Levy 2010a).
If one is interested in analyzing ‘religious discourse’ as defined above, one
may conclude that the apology by the Jobcentre Plus manager and Jarvis’
Jediism fall outside the limits of ‘religious discourse’ if they do not conform to
analytical definitions of religion, at least in any obvious sense. For someone
who sees claims to ‘religion’ as tactical moves serving interests and achieving
consequences, this case is relevant data. The Jobcentre Plus apology and the
events that occurred before and after are telling. First, the person is escorted
from the premises, yet soon after they receive an apology for being disrespected
with regard to their religion. Whatever the underlying reason for the apology—
and it may well have been a tactic to avoid further consequences—it provides
an example of negotiation over what counts as religion and how references to
‘religion’ can be used in justifying something else (here, a certain dress code).
When Mr. Jarvis was asked about the motives for his complaint, he commented
in the Sun: “Muslims can walk around in whatever religious gear they like, so
7 A more substantial analysis of this case is provided in Taira 2013b.

why can’t I?” (Haydon 2010). Furthermore, he stated in the Daily Mail that
“someone with their own religious views is allowed to wear what their religion
says—the Sikhs are able to carry a great big dagger. My religion allows me to
wear my hood” (Levy 2010b).
Jarvis’ statements do not give ground for generalizing that all Jedis are criti-
cal of ethnic minorities, immigrants, and multiculturalist policy that guaran-
tees some privileges on the basis of ‘religion’. Furthermore, it is not at all clear
whether marginal minorities or those in power were Mr. Jarvis’ primary targets.
However, the fact that this Jedi referred to ‘religious’ minorities in his response
is by no means a minor aspect in understanding what is going on in society and
how the expression of ‘Jedi religion’ might play a part in downplaying the privi-
leges already given to Muslims and others on the basis of ‘religion’. Therefore,
Jedis’ claims to have a ‘religion’ are partly tactical moves in defending their
cultural position. Moreover, such claims are expressed in the context of a soci-
ety in which predominantly white male youths feel they are losing their tradi-
tionally more secure position and opportunities. Mr. Jarvis was unemployed,
and calling Jediism his religion gave him a voice and made it count.
One of the functions of claiming rights or special treatment on the basis of
Jedi religion is to put pressure on others’ religion-based privileges. This popular
questioning of ‘religion’ discloses some of the assumptions related to prevalent
discourse and how ‘religion’ functions in justifying exemptions of various
kinds. It also shows the difficulty of managing society using the category of
‘religion’ without creating conflicts, because the definitions of ‘religion’ are
repeatedly contested and appropriated for new uses. Jedi controversies such as
this highlight both the arbitrary nature of ‘religion’ and the fact that its man-
agement in society is a matter of power rather than disinterested reason.
Furthermore, in this example, we saw a highly reactive response from a white
male lower-class youth, whose voice has been lost in the public sphere. While
it may sound vulgar to compare this case to the famous comment made by
Mark David Chapman, John Lennon’s killer—“I was Mr Nobody until I killed
the biggest Somebody on earth” (quoted in Rojek 2001: 154)—the logic in
celebrity-driven media is the same: “I was Mr. Nobody until I challenged the
privileges of others and the institutions that grant those privileges.” Without
reference to Jediism as a religion and its requirement to wear a hood up, who
would listen to Chris Jarvis?
Mr. Jarvis got his “Jerry Springer moment”: a short experience of fame that
was seen more as a fleeting curiosity than an event with long-term policy
impact. The fact that this was achieved by claiming to have a ‘religion’ is not
accidental. On the contrary, ‘religion’ is effective at providing relatively mar-
ginal people and groups with a voice. Paradoxically, one reason why ‘religion’ is
138 Taira
effective for these groups in particular lies in its limitation: claiming something
in the name of ‘religion’ reproduces marginality on a larger scale by confining
it within a supposedly non-political, private sphere, away from the public
sphere of politics. In other words, claiming something in the name of ‘politics’
would engender a very different type of response, without the relative protec-
tion given to views deemed ‘religious’ as a “private and deeply held personal
issue” (McCutcheon 2005: 92).
A closer look at media coverage of the Jarvis case further demonstrates
some of the functions discourse on ‘religion’ has as part of power relations in
social formation. The case was reported or commented on in the most popular
British tabloids, such as the Daily Mail and the Sun, but also in the “quality”
paper the Guardian. The Daily Mail used the case as an opportunity to ques-
tion the rationale of equality and diversity legislation that protects groups clas-
sified as ‘religious’. Furthermore, by hinting at the ridiculous and comic aspects
of the case, the paper was able to state that the apology “sums up the march of
political correctness of the public sector” (Levy 2010a). “Political correctness” is
used in conservative papers, including the Daily Mail, as a slur against liberals
and the “loony left” for giving minorities undeserved rights and protecting
them from public scrutiny (see Muir, Petley, and Smith 2011: 92–99). In religion-
related stories, it is typically used as a device for arguing against the imagined
enemies of Christianity, mainly Muslims and atheists. In this case the paper
argued—despite its humorous tone—that the apology was undeserved and
unnecessary, thus implying that Jediism is not comparable to “real religion”
(i.e., Christianity). This message was further underlined as the story ridiculed
Mr. Jarvis by emphasizing that the desire to wear a hood was the reason for his
becoming a Jedi. The paper’s way of downplaying Mr. Jarvis by emphasising his
low social status also functioned to consolidate the difference between serious
and ‘real’ religion—especially Christianity, which is openly supported by the
paper—and Jediism.
Here, the media coverage illustrates two aspects of my argument in this
chapter: first, that discourse on ‘religion’ is employed strategically depending
on the purposes it may serve; and second, that not all claims to have a ‘reli-
gion’ are accepted in the dominant discourse. People can go on referring to
their activities as ‘religious’, but in order to be effective, they need institu-
tional support. The media is one of the key institutions in deciding what
should be included in the dominant discourse on religion and what should
remain excluded. In this role, it is sometimes in conflict with other institu-
tions. The media cannot prevent Jedis from making claims on the basis of
‘religion’, nor can it prevent the Jobcentre from apologizing, but the media are
more powerful than Mr. Jarvis or the Jobcentre in offering the framework for
interpreting the case. Ridiculing both the Jobcentre apology and Mr. Jarvis is
an act of discursive power that functions to practically exclude what amounts
to a relatively idiosyncratic claim to religiosity, hence maintaining the exist-
ing discourse.
Negotiating the Limits of Discourse on Religion: Reflexivity and

Multiple Functions
The two examples given here demonstrate that negotiations over what counts
as religion are relevant parts of contemporary societies. My suggestion is that
it is best not to study them by defining religion or arguing over whether they
are really religions. It is more interesting to examine what is at stake in such
debates—what people accomplish in the positions given to them by effective
discourses, and how social practices are shaped by references to ‘religion’.
Focusing on inclusions and exclusions in the discourse on religion is not a ran-
dom choice. As Sara Mills suggests in explicating Foucault’s ideas, exclusion is
“one of the most important ways in which discourse is produced” (Mills 1997: 67);
I would add that studying the borderline cases demonstrates the discursive
processes through which the boundaries between inclusion and exclusion are
renewed and also challenged (see my case studies on Wicca [Taira 2010] and
Druidry [Owen and Taira 2015]). As Roland Barthes (1977: 200) noted, discourse
“moves, in its historical impetus, by clashes.”
The examples given above offer some ideas about the prospects for future
studies of the current situation. Scholars can analyze the media, courtrooms,
government policy debates, healthcare, prisons, the army, and schools. These
are all venues in which disputes about ‘religion’ take place. Almost any person
can make all sorts of assertions about the religiosity of this or that, but only
some of them are effective. This is why established and dominant discourses
are often entangled with institutions. If someone makes claims about the reli-
giosity of Confucianism or Jediism in a pub, it is not likely to be very effective
(although it is possible to imagine a situation in which that utterance is taken
on board by others, and they later succeed in registering their group as a reli-
gion [see also Kocku von Stuckrad’s discussion on the seriality of discourse in
Chapter 9 of this volume]). However, if a judge states in court that Confucianism
or Jediism is a religion, then the utterance has authority and institutional sup-
port. It is taken seriously—the simple utterance becomes a statement in a
Foucauldian sense—and society increasingly starts to organize itself as if these
groups were religions. The case of Chris Jarvis, as analyzed above, is located
between these two examples. Jarvis’ claim to have a religion, made in a Jobcentre
140 Taira
Plus, was taken seriously and soon flagged by the media, thus making it rela-
tively effective, although the media was quick to emphasize the comic aspects
of the case. To repeat, rather than jumping into the debate and suggesting that
a certain group or practice is essentially religious or secular, authentic or fake,
scholars can ask: What is at stake in these disputes? Why do some people and
groups want to be classified as ‘religious’ or (nonreligious) ‘secular’, and why is
the issue negotiated in the first place? What do people achieve by making
claims about religiosity, and how do some statements about religiosity become
more effective than others? What kinds of institutional structures are required
for statements to become effective? Who benefits?
There have been such disputes in the past, but there seems to be an intensi-
fication of these debates and an increase in known cases in which determining
the religiosity of a group or practice is at issue. Some caution is required in any
attempt to identify the starting point of this development. Writing in the
British context, James Beckford considered the changes in what counts as reli-
gion as part of his analysis of religion in advanced industrial society (mainly
the post-Second World War transformations; see Beckford 1989; 2003: 1), but he
did not give examples of negotiations that take place in the media, the court-
room, or other institutions. In Finland, for instance, the most obvious cases
have occurred after the turn of the millennium. Elsewhere, similar debates
have taken place among so-called New Religious Movements in the 1960s and
70s. Therefore, we will leave open the question of when exactly this develop-
ment began, and it is likely that the answer is slightly different in each country;
as I see it, however, it is roughly over the past 15 years that these debates have
intensified. In any case, the following recent examples are sufficient to indicate
the flavor of contemporary debates and the processes of drawing boundaries
that organize social practices.
In early 2014, a Polish court overturned its earlier rejection, granting the
Church of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism permission to register as a religion
(Nelson 2014). In the summer of 2014, it was decided that Austrian Pastafarian
Niko Alm was allowed to wear a colander in official photographs (in his pass-
port, for example). The media stories about the case referred to the Church of
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism and its self-representation as a religion, although
the Austrian police said that the decision was not made on religious grounds—
wearing a colander leaves the entire face visible in photographs, and that is
what counts (Anonymous 2014a). A year earlier, Czech officials ruled that
turning down a request to wear a colander in an official identity card photo-
graph would be a breach of the country’s religious equality laws (Williams
2013). In October 2014, the bbc published a story about Jediism, and the key
question was whether it amounts to a religion or whether it should be deemed
an inauthentic, tongue-in-cheek phenomenon (i.e., not “really religion”; see

De Castella 2014).
The examples are not limited to groups that are often regarded as jokes. In
Finland, the National Police Board suggested in 2014 that “religious symbols”—
such as headscarves and turbans—cannot be worn with a police uniform, and
the minister of the interior concluded, “It’s important that police are seen as rep-
resenting official power, not certain religious convictions” (Anonymous 2014b).
The leader of the French far-right National Front, Marine le Pen, stated in April
2014 that French schools should not accept any “religious menus” as lunch
options (Anonymous 2014c). The Supreme Court of Britain ruled in December
2013 that Scientology counts as a religion, thus allowing a couple to get married
at the Church of Scientology chapel in London (Bingham 2013). Sometimes the
negotiations apply even to the groups that, on other occasions, posit themselves
in direct opposition to religion. In Oregon, for instance, a federal judge decided
that secular humanism is a religion, thereby making it possible for a prisoner to
launch a humanistic study group in prison (Anonymous 2014d).
These recent examples come from Europe or the Anglophone world, but
I have also provided the example of Confucianism above, thereby suggesting
that my argument is not based solely on European and American cases.
Furthermore, it is useful to make a connection between particular cases and
wider social processes in theorizing why there seems to be a recent increase
in self-conscious claims to have a religion. For instance, the case of Chris
Jarvis and its media coverage is not an isolated one, but rather a good example
of processes in which ‘religion’ becomes both a matter of dispute and an ever
more effective tool in getting results, as it becomes increasingly contested and
negotiated in public life. This is what I would call “a reflexive moment” that
merits further analysis. After the formation and establishment of the modern
discourse on ‘religion’, it is now facing its own history and becoming an
increasingly common tool for strategic use in achieving certain goals. It has
arguably always been a strategic tool, but perhaps without this awareness of
its history and functions in organizing social practices. In this sense, the cat-
egory of ‘religion’ has to face its own modern history. Consequently, ‘religion’
becomes ever more contested and disputed as a category in various public
institutions. This correlates with increased references to the term ‘religion’ in
the media (for an overview of the British context, see Knott, Poole, and Taira
2013: 103).
In addition to reflexivity in the disputes over the category of religion, the
above examples demonstrate that religion is also a multifunctional category,
meaning that its current functions cannot be directly discovered by studying
the emergence of the modern discourse on religion or simply reduced to its
142 Taira
function in serving colonial powers. Many things are done with ‘religion’ as
societies, institutions, and small groups within societies organize themselves
by negotiating the category of ‘religion’. In the case of Confucianism, for exam-
ple, the works of Legge and Müller have contributed to the possibility that
some people take claims about Confucianism as a religion seriously in the con-
temporary world. However, the discourse is malleable and open to variety of
uses, particularly when people have an opportunity to support their practical
interests by referring to Confucianism as a religion (or a nonreligion). Likewise,
in the case of Jediism, it is plausible to suggest that the effectiveness of Chris
Jarvis’ statements derive from the fact that religion is regarded as an issue of
inner conviction, separated from ‘political’ statements reserved for the func-
tioning of the nation-state. However, the statements’ main functions were on a
smaller scale—in attempting to get his voice heard and in simultaneously
challenging the privileges of Muslims.
Conclusion
In an article published in 2013, Kevin Schilbrack asks what scholars of religion

will do after deconstructing the category of ‘religion’. This chapter is one pos-
sible answer to the question of what the next step might be. The answer does
not have to be a better or improved definition of religion as a scholarly cate-
gory; it can be a discursive approach to ‘religion’. Furthermore, even if one
wanted to defend the analytical definitions of religion and see them as useful
for one’s research interests, as Schilbrack (2014) does, this does not mean that
the approach defended here would be devoid of value.
Discursive practices play an effective role in organizing social practices in
general, and the category of ‘religion’ is no exception. The empirical examples
offered in this chapter are simply snapshots of recent developments, and the
argument is that they are most fruitfully studied when analytical definitions of
religion are not employed. The tools of standard discursive approaches and
discourse analysis are relevant, and which tools are most appropriate depends
mainly on the case—whether it is historical-leaning, textual-leaning, or a com-
bination of the two. This chapter has highlighted studies focusing on disputes
over whether certain groups or practices count as ‘religion’. It does not consti-
tute a completely separate, third approach that should be understood as con-
flicting with von Stuckrad’s and Hjelm’s approaches, but its emphasis is still
distinct in more clearly underlining the need to study how various actors
define religion in public discourse and institutions for various purposes as
well as the consequences of such negotiations. I have suggested that detailed
examinations of empirical cases are necessary to identify the many functions

of discourse on ‘religion’. I have further indicated that, when recent cases are
theorized collectively, it is possible to conclude that there is a greater contem-
porary reflexivity in how the discourse is appropriated in the organization of
social practices.
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chapter 7
Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life:

Modes of Observation

and Jens Köhrsen
When […] the kinds of desired salvation-goods were strongly influenced

by the kinds of outer states of interest […] and thus by social stratifica-
tion as such, so, inversely, the direction of the whole conduct of life
also […] was determined most deeply by […] religiously conditioned
assessments and statements.
MAX WEBER 1988: 259, translated by the authors
“Beyond words and wars” is the title of the presidential address given by Mark
Juergensmeyer (2010) at the 2009 American Academy of Religion’s Annual
Meeting. Coming from his research on the relation between religion and vio-
lence, Juergensmeyer strongly advocates an analytic approach to religious
praxis that relates the worldview of actors—especially their religious beliefs—
to the social structures and processes in which the actors are involved. While
the relevance of this relation is doubtlessly particularly evident in religious
conflict, it is also crucial for understanding religious life and human praxis in
general. Juergensmeyer underscores the fact that the ideal theoretical frame-
work for this kind of research is the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. For us—the
sociology of religion team at the Bielefeld University Center for the Inter
disciplinary Research on Religion and Society (CIRRuS)—the emphasis of
this presidential address seems like a lucky coincidence, because we have
been doing research on religion based upon Bourdieu’s praxeology since the
1980s.1 Bridging the gap between discourses and worldviews on the one hand
1 We have conducted, with methods based in Bourdieu’s general theory, since the 1980s (in
the case of Schäfer’s work in Guatemala and Nicaragua that represents the empirical refer-
ence point of this article) field studies on Pentecostals and other religious actors in several
countries. In recent research projects—Buenos Aires (Köhrsen), Bosnia and Herzegovina
(Seibert, Štimac), and Mexico City (Tovar), and, again, in Guatemala and Nicaragua (Tovar,
Reu) –, we have tested and advanced our models and methods. Information can be
obtained from this website: www.uni-bielefeld.de/religionsforschung (publications and

148 Schäfer et al.
and social structures on the other has been the central focus of the method of
HabitusAnalysis we have been developing over the intervening years. This
focus provides a common interest with critical discourse analysis, as discussed
in the present volume. This is even more the case if discourse analysis is under-
stood as a research style that “addresses the relationship among communica-
tional practices and the (re)production of systems of meaning, or orders of
knowledge, the social agents that are involved, the rules, resources, and mate-
rial conditions that are underlying these processes, as well as their impact on
social collectives” (von Stuckrad 2013: 15). We fully agree with Norman Fair
clough’s statement that social analysis needs discourse analysis (Fairclough
2003: 204); however, we would add that discourse analysis also calls for social
analysis. HabitusAnalysis focuses on the subjective (practical sense) and objec-
tive (fields, social space) conditions of practices and discourses, and it studies
practices and discourses from the viewpoint of their practical logic. Hence, we
are confident that the two chapters in this volume on theoretical (the present
chapter) and methodological (chapter eight) questions will serve a common
interest.2
As a prolegomena to this endeavor, we will open this chapter with some
thoughts on the relation between Bourdieu and text-oriented disciplines. We
are thereby setting the cornerstones for both of our contributions, on the one
hand mapping the premises that produce our modes of observation,3 which,
on the other hand, are inextricably related to the tools that make theses modes
of observation possible in research practice. These tools are presented in the
following chapter, the methodological part. Therefore, we would not like the
succession of these chapters to be read in the linear terms of “applying theory
to method and empirics.” Such a reading would contravene the rationale of
Bourdieuian praxeology. Rather—and despite the formal divisions imposed by
the logic of edited collections such as the present volume—we still hope to
open access). See here specially these two research reports: Schäfer, Reu, and Tovar 2015,
and Schäfer, Seibert, and Štimac 2015. Seibert (2014) presents another convincing example
of empirical research with the method. Moreover, the whole method as well as its episte-
mological and theoretical frames will be presented in the upcoming three volumes of
HabitusAnalysis (Schäfer 2015a; 2016; Schäfer, Seibert, and Tovar 2017). For technical work
on this article, many thanks to Elena Rambaks, Stephanie Zantvoort, and especially to
Sebastian Schlerka; for the original revision of English language to Teresa Castro. Since we
enlarged the article later on under some pressure of time, the mistakes in the new passages
are borne by the authors.
2 It may be that we can contribute to overcoming one or two of the critiques formulated by
Breeze 2011: 520.
3 See Schäfer 2015a: 127–130.
Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life 149
convey the epistemological unity and mutual constituency of the analytic

moments present in each chapter. Hence, these two chapters have been strate-
gically placed so as to link the first section of this volume (on theoretical reflec-
tions) with the second section (on contexts and cases) in order to reinforce this
point with regard to the other chapters as well.
Bourdieu, Discourse, and HabitusAnalysis
A central aim of Bourdieu’s sociology is to overcome the epistemological

dichotomy between what he calls the “social physics” of functionalism and the
“idealist semiology” of mere text-analysis (Bourdieu 2010: 484) and thus to
relate the worldviews of actors with objective social structures, the disposi-
tions with positions. Consequetly, Bourdieu had to take linguistic research into
account and had to work on language. While the former did not turn out to the
satisfaction of many linguists, Bourdieu’s integration of language and significa-
tional practices into his sociology has been very creative nonetheless and is
being widely received.4 The appropriateness of praxeology for bridging the gap
between signs and things, actors and structures, the symbolic and the material,
dispositions and positions—and so forth—has rendered this theory attractive
for sociolinguists and scholars of critical discourse analysis who are pursuing a
similar aim by focusing on “discourse as social practice” and the “dialectic of
structures and practice.”5 Praxeology has also been accepted as a theoretical
frame for sociolinguistic programs, and certain praxeological concepts
have been adopted for the analysis of linguistic expressions. These have been
4 About Bourdieu’s work on language, see Schäfer 2015a, part three (203–325); on Bourdieu’s
problematic relation to linguistics, see ibid., 226–227, 275–289, especially the critiques by
Searle and Thompson.
5 Fairclough 1989: 17. On the reception of Bourdieu in sociolinguistics, see Schäfer 2015a: 226–
236. Norman Fairclough (1989; 1995; 2003) may stand as another example of Bourdieu-
reception in critical discourse analysis. In Analysing Discourse (Fairclough 2003), he takes
from Bourdieu mainly the following concepts: habitus (29), classification (101, 130, 138), the
performative power of language (113), and style (183). For explicit reference to Bourdieu in the
present book, see chapter one by Titus Hjelm. In the German debate on discourse analysis,
Rainer Diaz-Bone (2002) enhances Bourdieu’s theory of distinction with the Foucault’s the-
ory of discourse. Ralf Bohnsack uses his documentary method—based upon Schütz,
Mannheim, and Garfinkel—to find habitūs (Bohnsack, Nentwig-Gesemann, and Nohl 2007;
Bohnsack 2013). The group called „Habitushermeneutik“ (Vester et al. 2001: 162; Bremer and
Teiwes-Kügler 2013; Lange-Vester and Teiwes-Kügler 2013) operationalizes Bourdieu’s sociol-
ogy mainly through Oevermann’s Objective Hermeneutics.
150 Schäfer et al.
predominantly the concepts of habitus (plural: habitūs), symbolic power, cul-

tural capital, and linguistic market, as well as Bourdieu’s observations on dia-
lects and conflicts about language. Nevertheless, specifically linguistic and
semiotic analyses within this framework—as far as we know—have generally
been executed with specific linguistic techniques.
Each of these adaptations of Bourdieu’s praxeology to research on linguistic
utterances has its specific strengths and virtues. However, as far as we can see,
much more benefit could be attained if the internal logic of Bourdieu’s
approach as a whole were brought into play. In short, we refer to the generativity
and structure-connectedness of the habitus and to the habitus-connectedness
of the models that depict social differentiation (fields) and domination (social
space). To be more specific: Bourdieu’s general social theory spans the whole
range between subjective and objective conditions of (linguistic and other)
practices, thus facilitating an appropriate understanding of these practices as
relations between these conditions. One can organize Bourdieu’s main theoreti-
cal concepts on a continuum between a subjective and an objective pole
(Schäfer forthcoming 2016). The result is a ‘series’ (Cassirer) of theoretical
terms such as the following: Habitus – practical sense – practical logic – logic
of praxis – field – space.6 On the one hand, the dispositions of the habitūs—that
is, their constant transformation of experience and production of m eaning—
appear as the subjective conditions of discourses and practices. The concept of
practical sense refers to basic connectedness—similar to the phenomenologi-
cal notion of “being in the world”—of the dispositions of the actors with their
6 Other concepts, such as embodied and objectified capital, illusio, game, a sense of one’s
place, strategy, speech, classification, and classes, can easily be associated with this series of
main theoretical reference points. Since the use of the concepts of practical sense, practical
logic, and logic of praxis in Bourdieu is somewhat blurred, their position in the series is the
result of our interpretation of Bourdieu’s sociology (Schäfer forthcoming 2016). In another
book (Schäfer 2015b), according to a different research interest, I put the concepts of practi-
cal logic and logic of praxis in a stronger opposition than is the case in the present chapter
and in Schäfer 2016 (forthcoming). In any case, the conceptual distinction helps to describe and
explain the relation between cognitive dispositions and social positions, classifications and
classes, value ascriptions and material goods (Bourdieu 2010: 468ff.). However, distinguishing
is not separating! We are always looking at two sides of the same coin: praxis. In metaphorical
terms, logic of praxis and practical logic connote the ‘operating system’ (or the ‘bios’) that
relates the cognitive and emotional ‘software’ of the dispositions to the processes that run on
the material and institutional ‘hardware’. Staying with these metaphors, logic of praxis
denotes the hardware-related operations, those that have to do with the positions of actors
in the overall social space and in different fields of praxis. Practical logic, in contrast, is asso-
ciated with the software-related operations, those that have to do with the dispositions of the
actors.
social environment. On the other hand, the concepts of social space and
fields refer to different modalities of sociologically describing the positions of
actors (and thus their habitūs) within the overall distribution of capital (space)
and the dynamics of differentiated spheres of action (fields). Thus, disposi-
tions and positions are theoretically anchored and can be empirically
described. Within this frame, one can conceptualize logic of praxis as the
social dynamics induced by the objective structures of a given society (be they
material, such as the production of goods, or symbolic, such as law). Practical
logic can be understood as the subjective side of practical relations—the dis-
courses uttered, the activities undertaken, strategic planning, and so forth.
Thus, logic of praxis and practical logic mean the objective and the subjective
aspects of the practical relation between habitus and structure. In consequence,
most of Bourdieu’s work on language7 can be understood as a contribution to
a theory of practical logic (e.g., linguistic strategies) and logic of praxis (e.g.,
linguistic market).
Drawing the consequences of these observations for discourse analysis, one
can relate it especially to practical logic and, to a certain extent, to logic of
praxis. Thus discourse analysis has a privileged role when it comes to analyzing
the relations that bridge the gap between structure and worldviews. This com-
plies with the definition of discourse given by Kocku von Stuckrad: “Discourses
are practices that organize knowledge in a given community; they establish,
stabilize, and legitimize systems of meaning and provide collectively shared
orders of knowledge in an institutionalized social ensemble. Statements, utter-
ances, and opinions about a specific topic, systematically organized and
repeatedly observable, form a discourse.” (von Stuckrad 2013: 15) The different
methods employed by the ‘research style’ (von Stuckrad) of critical discourse
analysis, from the viewpoint of a praxeological approach, concentrate on the
relations between the subjective and the objective conditions of praxis. This
means that a thorough analysis of these conditions unveils much of the driving
logic of the discourses and practices studied according to text-oriented meth-
ods. Describing the objective opportunities and constraints of actors by means
of the models of fields and social space is one important aspect. Even more
important, in the context of the present chapter, is the subjective condition of
linguistic and other utterances in the dispositions and generative processes of
the habitus. The transformations of experience by those processes that gener-
ate perception, judgment, and action orientation—modeled as “habitus”—
orient and limit the production of discursive and other strategies employed by
7 Bourdieu 2006; 1991a; 1985a; 1994; Bourdieu et al. 1999. See also Bourdieu 1990b: 80 ff.; and
Bourdieu 2000.
152 Schäfer et al.
actors to exert effects on objective structures, such as groups, capital distribu-

tion, production processes, or social hierarchies. The analysis of the habitus8
reveals the deep structure of how the actors make sense of their experiences
and thus the deep structure that operates in discursive strategies. In conse-
quence, the useful contribution of HabitusAnalysis to discourse analysis is not
an additional method of text-analysis in order to sharpen the analytical tech-
niques even further; it rather consists in operationalizing the theoretical frame
of praxeology in two regards: First, HabitusAnalysis provides analytical
approaches to the objective conditions of discourses that define the social
opportunities and constraints of their employment. Second, it provides an
approach to the dispositional deep structures that orient and limit discourse
production by the actors and the social meaning of the discourses as well as
the probabilities of their taking effect.
In this chapter and the following, we apply the praxeological approach to
the study of religion. In order to do so, we conceive of religion as human
praxis. Religion involves beliefs and practices as much as it involves the
social conditions and struggles in which people live, “words and wars” as
Juergensmeyer says. Religion, as praxis, primarily copes with contingence
and conflict by referring to transcendent beings or forces. It constructs reli-
gious meaning, ‘words’. Now, we take ‘words’ as operators of the practical
sense and practical logic and not as something independent of social life,
such as a cognitive reflection of the world (Widerspiegelung), symbolic sys-
tems, or the like. With a hermeneutical and pragmatist reading of Bourdieu,
we integrate the production of meaning into a method and theory of practi-
cal logic, which explains the cognitive dispositions, identities, and strategies
of the actors. ‘Words’ are understood as embodied capital and thus as opera-
tional in the social context of the actors, in ‘wars’. We interpret ‘war’ as a
metonymical expression for the conflictive—or rather competitive—character
of social relations, as in the way the logic of praxis operates with the objec-
tive social structures and processes, understood as objectified capital.
Following Bourdieu and older theories of functional (‘horizontal’, division of
labor) and hierarchical (‘vertical’, class) differentiation, we model these rela-
tions as fields (for example, the religious field) and as social space (of reli-
gious dispositions or styles). These instruments model both differentiation
and domination in a different way. The models show where the actors are
positioned in the social struggles. Hence, combining space and fields, on the
one hand, with habitus and practical sense, on the other, discloses how
8 In more precise wording: What is being analyzed is the practical sense of the actors, which
allows us to make conclusions about their habitus.
religious meaning and social relations operate interdependently in dis-

courses and non-discursive practices.
Religion
Religion could be understood as a function of the ‘social system’ or of the

abstract, utility-maximizing individual, or it might be taken as a system of dog-
matic sentences. Instead, we are primarily interested in the views of the believ-
ers, or a first-order observation.9 Therefore, we conceive ‘religion’ as human
activity that people are caught up with in body, soul, and mind, activity which
people share (or dispute) with their neighbors. What people believe is just one
side of the coin; the other side is the power and the capability to act that these
people (and their institutions) have in relation to others and to the social
opportunities and constraints in which they are situated. Religion is praxis—
mental and material praxis, operating through signs and through things.
Methodologically, the approach to the believers’ beliefs through the analysis of
the practical sense is complemented by the analysis of the functions of their
praxis through the models of social structure. Nevertheless, our approach to
religion is somewhat different from that of Bourdieu.
Bourdieu on Religion
In two early articles in 1971, Bourdieu exposes his view of religion in theoretical
terms.10 First, in the vein of Emile Durkheim, he understands religious praxis
as constituting a particular ‘field’ with its own rules of operation, functionally
distinct from economy, politics, fashion, and other fields. Second, he postu-
lates, following Marx and Weber, different religious demands according to dif-
ferent social ‘classes’. Third, Bourdieu emphasizes, in the tradition of Durkheim
and Weber, that beyond the function of believing, specific beliefs are impor-
tant for religious praxis and are related to the demands for meaning that peo-
ple articulate. While Bourdieu’s theory of religion nevertheless remains quite
9 For the combination of first- and second-order observation, see Schäfer 2015a, 127–130. In
contrast, von Stuckrad (2013: 17) defines religion as “the societal organization of knowl-
edge about religion.” This definition corresponds exclusively to the second-order observa-
tion of the scientific observer. In consequence, the research questions and types of data
(18 ff.) focus on field dynamics more than on actors.
10 See Bourdieu (1987; 1991b). For more literature and for comments, see: Bourdieu 2000; Rey
2007.
154 Schäfer et al.
shallow,11 these three characteristics of religious praxis are traits of any praxis
and were developed much further by Bourdieu until his death in 2002. We
therefore agree with other scholars12 that the most relevant contributions of
Bourdieu to the study of religion can be derived from his general social theory,
namely from the concepts of habitus and practical sense, of practical logic, of
fields, and of social space. We combine them into a theory and a method for
studying religious praxis.
Social Experience and Religious Interpretation13

One trait of religious praxis, which combines cognitive and material aspects in
a significant way, is that religious interpretation counters experiences of con-
tingency. Such experiences range from perceiving one’s own finitude and the
perspective of death to concrete situations of social crises and threats, such
as economic scarcity, military repression, and ecological catastrophes. Any
human being reacts to such experiences by interpreting them, ascribing mean-
ing. Interpretation in the practical contexts of life does not mean an intellec-
tual and reflexive exercise. Rather, the term refers to the simple, spontaneous,
and most often even unconscious ascription of meaning to experiences. Social
and religious movements are particularly notorious for the operation of mean-
ing ascription. They interpret experiences of crises creatively and thus mobi-
lize adherents. The interpretation makes the difference. But interpretation
does not ‘mirror’ crises and social structures. It is rather part of an operation
that transforms social experience, ascribing meaning to it and thus opening
perspectives of action. This is precisely the operation that generates identity
and strategy.
Religious actors interpret social experience in the same operational mode
as non-religious actors do: they ascribe meaning to it. The difference resides
only in the fact that religious actors employ different semantic contents. They
interpret experience by means of a promise of ‘salvation’ (Riesebrodt 2010)
with reference to a transcendent entity. ‘Salvation’ can range from a ritual
statement of authority, or a diviner’s prognosis, or a miraculous healing to the
expectation of a ‘new heaven and a new earth’. Thus the promise of salvation—
that is, the actors’ reference to an imagined transcendent reality or entity—
can render different social effects, from legitimizing domination and integrating
11 He sees religion generally as ideology, and the concept of ‘field’ is not sufficiently devel-
oped, as Crossley (2001), Parker (1996), and Urban (2003) also criticize. See more on this
issue in Schäfer 2015a: 353–358.
12 Verter 2003: 150, 152; see also Rey 2007.
13 For our concept of religion, see Schäfer 2004; 2009; 2014; 2015c.
society through compensation to revolution. The crucial point of difference

from the utopian aims of modern social movements in general is the reference
to a transcendent entity, an ‘otherworldly’ (Weber) reality. Religious actors do
not primarily project social change into a more or less distant future. Rather,
they derive their authority and orientation by referring to a transcendent
entity, which they claim as extant, and to which they ascribe certain proper-
ties. Thus, ‘transcendence’ in religious praxis is not an empty term (i.e., a con-
cept without imagined content), as some functional theories of religion would
depict it.14 Rather, religious actors tie the transcendent sphere to some idea of
divine beings or “superhuman powers,” as Riesebrodt (2010: 71) puts it. They
interpretively relate ‘earthly’ experiences to transcendent beings and realms,
holding up the distinctions between each. Transcendence turns concrete and
practical: In the flow of praxis, the recourse to transcendence becomes what
we call an “operator of practical sense and of practical logic.” It is precisely the
relation between ‘earthly’ experiences and ‘otherworldly’ interpretations that
creates religious identities, strategies, and, finally, praxis itself. Hence, the
specificity of religious praxis is not to strictly separate religious from non-
religious spheres or religious symbols from material processes; its specificity
rather resides in interpreting non-religious and material processes in a reli-
gious way, emphasizing the distinction between ‘worldly’ and ‘otherworldly’
powers. For example, it is well known that a religious transformation of inter-
est conflicts into identity conflicts often makes the contention more violent;
religious judgments, referring to ‘eternal’ truths, tend to give an ultimate spin
to penultimate disputes and conflicts. On the other hand, religious attitudes
may significantly foster strategies of peacekeeping.15
14 See Luckmann 1967. For the discussion, see Pollack (1995). For our point of view, see
Schäfer 2004: 265–272, 307–331, 332–357; 2009; 2014; 2015c. With regard to Taira, in chapter
six of this volume, we would like to underscore that we are interested in the religious
discourses of religious practitioners, not in discourses on religion. Thus, the reference to a
transcendent entity is meant as such by the actors (in first-order relations). Regarding
Horii’s contribution in chapter twelve of this volume, we would like to state here that the
reference of religious believers to transcendent powers—implicitly, of course—traces a
distinction between transcendence and immanence (in most cases basically as a differ-
ence of power between transcendent and immanent beings). However, we do not con-
sider this equivalent to the distinction between religious and secular spheres in society.
A religious actor—as easily observed in the Pentecostal movement—may use the refer-
ence to transcendent powers precisely to deny the existence of any non-religious sphere
in society; instead, secularism appears to them as false religion (under the dominion of
the devil).
15 See, for example, Goldstein and Rayner 1994; Rothman and Olson 2001; Weingardt 2007.
156 Schäfer et al.
However, the practical performance of religious actors does not depend

simply on the semantic content a given religious movement or institution
propagates. Rather, religious praxis depends on actor-specific relations between
social conditions and the ascription of religious meaning to them. Religious
actors employ particular contents to cope with the specific events and (prob-
lematic) situations by which they are affected. If experiential contexts differ
between certain collective actors, they trigger different religious symbols and
generate different religious identities, even if the given actors share the same
semiotic inventory—for instance, when both groups of actors are Pentecostals.
It is the relation between particular experience and specific religious content
that makes actors develop their distinct religious identities and strategies,
including their different concepts of the relation between transcendent forces
and society or history and, of course, different strategies in social conflicts and
competition.
With regard to the method employed to analyze the practical sense of an
actor, the reference to transcendence made by religious actors serves as a heu-
ristic pointer. In a religious actor’s interview or discourse (e.g., a sermon), gen-
erally there will exist a positive reference to a transcendent entity—even if
only the vocable ‘God’. This reference not only identifies the discourse as reli-
gious (or as on religion); it also marks the reference point from which the
semantic (and, of course, the logical) relation to negative and positive experi-
ences can be found in order to reconstruct the deep structures of meaning-
generation in the habitus (see the section below on method), and thus the
forming of religious identities and strategies.
Nevertheless, the formal process of interpreting experience and creating
identities and strategies in religion is entirely the same as in any other form of
social praxis. For this reason, religious and non-religious perceptions, judg-
ments, and action—on the one hand—blend into one another; and on the
other hand, religious interpretation and experience display characteristically
different capacities in the face of the same social conditions and situations. In
consequence, religious identities and strategies can provide an alternative
and sometimes more effective way of coping with challenges—for example,
when a change of strategies is needed in order to survive military repression,
as we will see below in the example of Guatemalan Pentecostals in the next
chapter.
The fact that the formal processes are equal for both religious and non-reli-
gious production of meaning allows us to conceive both of them as practical
logic and to analyze them empirically with the same methods and models. This
does not entail mixing religious and non-religious praxis in an improper way.
To the contrary, since both are comprehended as praxis, both the similarities
between the two forms of praxis and the specificities of each one become evi-
dent. Hence, in order to better understand religious praxis, we will go a bit
further into the details of the concept of praxis.
Praxis
We use the concept of praxis differently from the one of practice(s). Bourdieu
does not strictly define the concept of praxis, but refers to it time and again in
various contexts. However, he makes special reference to the first of Marx’s
“Theses on Feuerbach: Praxis as Sensorial Human Activity.” (Bourdieu 1990a: 13).
We would like to support an even broader notion of praxis.
Aristotle, Wittgenstein, Bourdieu

Looking back to Aristotle (1998: 1095b), one can understand the concept of
praxis in terms of bios, which is the mental, corporal, and social human con-
duct of life in accordance with an overarching goal—be it contemplation, poli-
tics, or enjoyment. Praxis then additionally denotes the entire human existence
as inherently intentional. However, from the sociological point of view, inten-
tionality of life is understood neither as a metaphysical goal nor simply as
threefold (as it is conceived by Aristotle). Rather, someone’s life becomes
objectively intentional: the habitus of actors and their subjective intentional-
ity are being shaped by their praxis under specific objective conditions of exis-
tence, and these, in turn, shape their practices and discourses. Thus, the social
intentionality of the habitus diversifies with the diversification of society.
We find another important aspect of praxis in Wittgenstein’s “forms of life”
(Wittgenstein 2004: i §23). Social life in its different forms is intimately inter-
woven with language, so that the meaning of language depends on its use in a
given context. Going another step beyond that, we hold that praxis also com-
prises the social conditions of human life: the social structure. Remembering
Elias (1978: 113, 118, 125), we point to the fact that human beings and the social
conditions of their existence are not two different things. The different con-
cepts ‘human being’ and ‘social structure’ are but cognitive models of two dif-
ferent aspects of one intimately interwoven reality. For instance, the social
distribution of goods affects human life deeply, and human action gives shape
to this distribution. This is a crucial point of relational sociology of which
Bourdieu constantly reminds us, e.g., by the relation between “Classes and
Classifications” (Bourdieu 2010: 468). The structures that result from the distri-
bution of goods (the classes) shape the actors’ ways of perceiving and evaluat-
ing the world (classifications), and vice versa. In other words, praxis has a logic
158 Schäfer et al.
that is co-generative with the logic according to which people act. However,
one flow of operations is not a mimesis of the other. Rather, each conveys its
own regularities even while they constantly exert mutual effects. To put it radi-
cally, praxis is the relation of interdependency between actor and structure.
Things, Signs, and Operators16

This concept of praxis conveys a richer interpretation of the distinction
between cognitive dispositions and social structure, which was earlier referred
to as signs and things. We do not understand the relation between material
things and cognitive signs as a reflection. Knowledge does not “mirror nature,”
as Richard Rorty (1980) has shown, in the vein of the pragmatist and herme-
neutic traditions. In a similar way, Wittgenstein’s critique of the Augustinian
concept of the sign as an image points towards a concept of signs as instru-
ments, as tools, in practical contexts of usage (Wittgenstein 2004: i §6).
Consequently, we treat signs and things as operators in practical processes,
which can be described as the dialectics between logic of praxis and practical
logic. Hence, discourse also is understood as an operator—or, more precisely,
as a systematic and intentional combination of practical linguistic operators—
that relates objective (conjunctures, power structures, etc.) and embodied
(cognitive and emotional dispositions of the habitus and the practical sense)
conditions of existence according to the challenges of concrete situations.
Consequently, we also understand the concepts of meaning and practice(s) as
operational. First, they are related to the embodied tracks of praxis. Meaning is
created by actors who interpret their experiences through perception, valuation,
and self-positioning. Discursive or material practice(s) are acts accomplished by
actors. They are generated through processes of evaluating situations, other
actors, opportunities, and constraints—and, finally, through action. If we apply
this understanding of ‘meaning’ and ‘practices’ to the theoretical constitution of
actors, ‘meaning’ connotes identity and ‘practice’ strategy. Correspondingly,
identities and strategies can be understood as mutually constitutive. Both are
anchored in the dispositions of the habitūs, which operate by practical logic.
Practical Sense, Practical Logic, and Logic of Praxis

Our wide concept of praxis requires that we explain how signs relate to
things—in other words, how the convictions and beliefs of a person or a group
relate to the distribution of material goods and power and thus to objective
constraints and opportunities. In our preliminary remarks, we have already
shown that Bourdieu’s praxeology suggests a theory design in terms of a
16 For much more detail, see Schäfer 2015a: 139–202.

continuum between embodied and objectified conditions of praxis, such as

habitus – practical sense – practical logic – logic of praxis – fields – space. We
have also indicated that HabitusAnalysis primarily contributes knowledge
about the embodied and objectified conditions under which the practical logic
of discourses and practices is produced. On the one hand, HabitusAnalysis dis-
closes the deep structures of meaning operated by the dispositions of the habi-
tus; on the other hand, it provides insights into the logic of praxis that generates
the structural opportunities and constraints presented by fields of praxis and
by the overall social distribution of power. Finally, we have associated dis-
courses and similar (non-verbal) practices with Bourdieu’s concept of practi-
cal logic, the actor-oriented aspect of practical operations (the flipside of the
structure-oriented processes that operate according to the logic of praxis).
With regard to practical logic (and to a certain extent to logic of praxis), dis-
course analysis links to HabitusAnalysis and contributes many more analytical
techniques and insights in linguistic and semiotic operations than Bourdieu
himself proposed.
Habitus and Practical Sense

The concept of habitus is often mistaken as referring simply to the customary or
to an imputed ‘determination’ of actors by social structure. Instead, Bourdieu’s
elaborated theory of habitus invites us to understand habitus—a structured
and structuring system of cognitive, emotional, and bodily dispositions—as a
creative transformer of experience and a generator of partly stable and partly
new, even novel, practices and strategies.17 Thus, the dispositions of the habitus
also orient and limit rational reflection and contribute the material for cognitive
creativity. Actors acquire their dispositions to perceive, to judge, and to act in
persistent processes of socialization, through communication and interaction
with others, under the condition of social differences in terms of interests and
power, and in the flow of time. Thus, feelings, words, concepts, and even mental
images constitute dispositions and serve as instruments for praxis, mediated
through the practical sense of the actors. Dispositions are never situated outside
of praxis as pure ideas (as neo-idealist scholars might suppose). They react to
experiences and are molded by them; in turn, they mold the experienced
world through practices that follow a practical logic and may correspond equally
to spontaneous impulses or to strategic planning.18 Dispositions facilitate
17 See particularly Bourdieu 1990a: 53. See also Bourdieu 1977a: 72–158; and Bourdieu 1998:
75–91.
18 Bourdieu himself occasionally gives rise to a separation between habitus and rational
calculus when he states that, in crises, habitus cedes to calculus. Leaning on our model of
160 Schäfer et al.
contextualized creativity through generative processes ‘within’ the habitus. The

dispositions of the habitus are linked to one another. For example, perception
activates judgment, and judgment activates action. One disposition is triggered
by the activation of another, and so forth, following a certain logic. Consequently,
the concept of habitus can be understood in terms of a network of dispositions
that are linked in manifold ways and are activated interdependently. Thus, reli-
gious dispositions may trigger feelings and action with regard to politics, econ-
omy, or sexuality, and vice versa. Habitus-based interpretation of experience
and production of utterances is certainly relatively field-specific, but is by no
means restricted to a given field. Interconnected dispositions fuel practical
operations—such as discourses—with cognitive content and emotional energy;
they are able to transcend socially established discursive boundaries precisely
because they are linked to each other in networks. Finally, these networks of
dispositions are simultaneously individual and collectively shared by given
groups of actors.19
Bourdieu uses the concept of practical sense in order to grasp the situated-
ness of the habitus in the concrete life-worlds of the actors. Leaning on the
phenomenological tradition, the concept expresses a very concrete ‘being in
the world’. It refers to the situational affectedness of the dispositions of percep-
tion, judgment, and action, according to the social conditions and practices of
other actors, as a given actor is immersed in practical relations.20 In a praxeo-
logical context, being in the world may also be understood as being precisely in
that position which society confines one to. Hence, through the ‘sense of their
place’, actors exclude themselves from goods, places, contacts to persons, etc.,
which they are excluded from anyway by the social structure; or—from a dom-
inant position—they lay claim to whatever they consider desirable (Bourdieu
2010: 473; 1985: 728). With their practical sense, their feeling for the game,
actors partake in struggles in different fields of praxis (Bourdieu 1990b: 66).
The practical sense is anchored in the dispositions of the habitus; it constantly
the habitus as a network of dispositions, we rather conceive of dispositions as strongly

intertwined with rational reflection. For more details, see Schäfer 2015a; 2015c; 2005. The
strict separation between determination and free will represents Baroque anthropology
rather than praxeological sociology.
19 The network model of habitus implies a specific theory of individual and collective iden-
tity. See Schäfer 2015b; 2005.
20 “Thus, objectified history becomes activated and active only if the more or less institu-
tionalized position, with the more or less codified programme of action that it contains,
finds—like a garment, a tool, a book or a house—someone who sees in it enough of
themselves to take it up and make it their own, and by the same token to be taken up by
it”( Bourdieu 2000: 153).
deals with the conditions in fields that generate practices and discourses,
according to the deep structure of its practical logic and to the logic that domi-
nates the praxis in these fields.
The concept denotes the constant process of cognitive (and emotional)
transformation between experience and interpretation that operates on the
actor’s side of praxis. The adaptive or creative transformations generated by
this process depend very much on the semantic content provided for the
interpretation.21 In terms of theory, the practical sense is the embodied dispo-
sitions of the habitus in action. In terms of methodology, the utterances of the
practical sense—especially the semantics—are the material through which
to explore the deep structures of meaning in the dispositions of the habitus—
that is, the embodied conditions of discourse-production, and therefore the
hidden logic of discourses. However, the objective conditions of discourse
production are also indispensable for understanding its social effects and
meaning.
Logic of Praxis, Fields, and Social Space

With the concept ‘logic of praxis’, we refer to the operational logics of objective
social relations, positions, and processes. Better than the concept of structure
alone, logic of praxis connotes that social structure is not a thing that is fixed
once and for all time. Rather, the stability and durability of social structure—
understood as a “relatively continuous social network of mutual effects in a
given society” (Fürstenberg 1966: 441, translated by the H.W. Schäfer)—is
largely due to the conclusiveness of the logic of praxis, by means of which
social processes contribute to the reproduction of the established distribution
of power and goods, of capital. Crises, in turn, occur when the integrating con-
clusiveness that governs the relations between the logic of praxis and practical
logic does not work anymore. The concept ‘logic of praxis’ refers, for example,
to such concrete phenomena as the exchange or production of goods, the stock
market, the technical transmission of data, military interventions, starvation,
church building, the remuneration system for the clergy, the office of the
bishop, and (as an objectivistic extreme) natural catastrophes. The concept
logic of praxis refers to these things and events under the special aspect of the
relations, mutual influences, and processes that occur in an objectified and
objective way. For instance, in the case of the objective aspects of conversion,
the change in the institutional belonging of lay people transforms the objec-
tive conditions of bureaucratic organization, complexity, and the power of
21 Interpretation does not mean an intellectual act of reflection, but rather the more or less
implicitly running cognitive appropriation of the ‘world’ in daily life.
162 Schäfer et al.
religious actors in the field (logic of praxis); massive conversion from one reli-
gious institution to another can even change the structure of the entire
religious field. These effects can be measured by objectivist and quantitative
techniques. The processes brought into focus through the concept of logic of
praxis are closely intertwined with those modeled by the concept of practical
logic, but they are not identical. The changes in practical logic, personal beliefs,
the reasons for conversion, and the new ascription of legitimacy and authority
take place in the practical sense and in the dispositions of the actors. They can
be grasped mainly by qualitative methods.
If one employs the vocabulary of capital, the logic of praxis is associated
with objectified forms of capital—with the building of a church, the ministry,
or the administrational processes, rather than with praying and preaching.
Objectified capital—such as economic resources or educational titles—is a
crucial factor, because it defines the position an actor occupies in the distribu-
tion of living conditions, power, opportunities, and restrictions, both in the
overall social space and in different fields, such as the religious, the economic,
and so forth. Simultaneously, the term capital still refers, in its classical sense,
to the investment of goods in order to achieve surplus value. For Bourdieu, the
concept of capital helps to keep in mind objective dynamics that operate to a
varying degree in the logics of praxis in different fields. Bourdieu focuses
mainly on competition and struggle for the relative improvement of one’s own
position. However, this focus is not exclusive, insofar as it does not preclude
taking into account other forms of action, such as cooperation. Hence, struc-
tural factors (the positions) and action-oriented factors (investment and
modes of production) are combined in the concept of logic of praxis. For
example, the degree of organizational complexity and efficacy of a church has
effects on its presence in society, on its power in politics, and, in turn, on its
finances. Additionally, the term ‘logic’ in ‘logic of praxis’ connotes the objective
rules according to which the social game proceeds. These rules are not only
effective as codified bodies of law. They also take effect through the (observ-
able) modes of behavior and through the (tacit) conventions by which human
collectives function. As modes of social reproduction, such implicit regulari-
ties (like common sense) or explicit rules can be seen as soft structural factors
of the logic of praxis.
Bourdieu provides two widely known models for the praxeological approach
to social structure: ‘fields’ and ‘social space’ (see below). The model of fields
addresses the functional differentiation of modern societies (e.g., Bourdieu
1995). It allows us to conceive of different spheres of social reproduction—
such as economy, politics, religion, or law—as competitive struggles (‘games’)
between experts endowed with different amounts of relevant capital and,
therefore, with different field-specific power. Since fields are conceived as rela-
tively autonomous from one another, this model allows us to understand the
specific logics of praxis that dominate a given field; religious reproduction
works differently from economic or artistic reproduction. As a consequence of
modeling relative autonomy and difference, the model also unveils practices
of compromising the boundaries of a field, such as the simonitical purchase of
ecclesiastic office with money. The model of the social space (e.g., Bourdieu
2010) focuses on social power relations. It models the overall social structure
according to the distribution of economic and cultural capital. Thus, it allows
us to locate given actors in the social power structure according to the volume
and the structure of the capital they hold. Relative to the positions of other
actors in the model, one can better understand the possibilities and constraints
at stake for the actors in partaking of social life as well as their probable trajec-
tory in the future.
With regard to the practical sense and practical logic, these objectivistic
models are of great benefit. They allow us to interpret the embodied disposi-
tions of given actors and the practical logic of their linguistic utterances and
practices within the context of social differentiation and power relations.
Thus, they serve to better contextualize texts as social events in social power
structures.22 Methodologically spoken, the habitūs of given actors can be
projected onto these models of fields or of the social space. This procedure
relates certain dispositions, practices, and discourses to certain positions in a
field or in the social space. Thus, formations of religious habitūs can be
located in the religious field, so that the corresponding discursive strategies
can be analyzed under the condition of specifically religious competition
with other actors. Religious habitūs can also be located in the overall social
space, so that certain religious practices and discourses are associated with
certain social positions—such as the ‘theodicees’ (Weber) of these positions,
so to say. Thus, the overall social structure is modeled as a “social space of
religious habitūs (dispositions) or styles.” The concept of style in Bourdieu
refers to the practical externalization of dispositions in recognizable com-
municational practices and discourses (Bourdieu 2010: 165, 247). Consequently,
the model of the social space of religious habitūs helps us to gauge the overall
social conditions of production and deployment of religious discourses and
practices as well as their social chances and limitations, opportunities
and constraints. Both models thus map the operating conditions of religious
practical logic.
22 See Fairclough 2003: 21–38.

164 Schäfer et al.
Practical Logic, Discourses, and Practices

From a praxeological point of view, a linguistic utterance is generally a social
event23 (that is, it is driven by the practical logic according to which the actors
pronounce it) within the context of a social event (that is, it is driven by an
objective logic of praxis). In his writings on language (2006), Bourdieu repeat-
edly states that a felicitous utterance is the result of a felicitous encounter
between the practical sense of an actor (habitus) and the conditions that
determine the logic of the situation in which the utterance takes place. The
encounter—in other words, the relation between actor-specific and structure-
specific processes—constitutes praxis. In our wording, the concept of practi-
cal logic refers primarily to the production of an utterance or practice by the
actor, while the concept of logic of praxis refers primarily to the social condi-
tions of reception of an utterance—two sides of the same coin. In this section,
we focus more on practical logic than on logic of praxis.
Practical logic is ultimately driven by the habitus-based capacity of an
actor—their practical sense—to perceive and to judge objective processes and
structures, and to orient action in an appropriate and meaningful way. To be
precise, the concept denotes the operational logic that governs the discourses
and practices of given actors. This operational logic is not exactly the same as
the logic according to which the dispositions of the habitus behave, since prac-
tical logic has to steer action while facing the “invitations and threats” (Bour
dieu 2010: 469) of social struggles. Practical logic thus operates in the practices
and communications that are constitutive for the objective processes to run—
such as greed and fear in the stock exchange, skill and will in military interven-
tions, moral and political ambition in legislation, prayer and faith in church,
despair and hope under the conditions of a flood, and so forth.
Consequently, practical logic provides structure and transformation to the
identities and strategies of the actors. Hence, it also exerts a structuring effect
on the logic of praxis. For example, military repression in a counter-insurgency
war can be interpreted by the Theology of Liberation as an effect of injustice
and an offense to God’s will, as uttered by the prophets; or, consistent with
major parts of the Pentecostal movement, it can be taken as a sign of the end
times. According to the different interpretations—provided by the various
religious dispositions of these actors—their practices will be different, and so
23 Fairclough (2003: 21) states: “Texts are seen in this book as parts of social events.” The fol-
lowing notes on practical logic are based on Bourdieu’s writings on language. See Schäfer
2015a: 203–325.; 2016 (forthcoming) on “Externalization” and “Practical logic.” They are
very close to Fairclough (2003; 1989), who develops, on a praxeological basis, critical dis-
course analysis much more fully than we can even indicate here.
will the effects on these power relations in society. Correspondingly, it is

important to note that practical logic does not simply reproduce social condi-
tions. Instead, the creative potential of the habitūs intervenes with changes,
reconfiguration, new ideas, and even cognitive revolutions— albeit always in
relation to the positions of the actors in their relevant games and to their
respective interests.
In consequence, we understand knowledge—the object of the sociology of
knowledge, as a counterpart of discourse analysis24—as an operator of practical
logic and, thus, as capital in operation among the social conditions in which it is
produced and employed.25 Knowledge operates, for instance, as a statement
under the conditions of social struggles, bound to convince, to form alliances, to
solve problems, to win ‘wars’. Knowledge is embodied capital invested through
communication, and it produces effects, one of which is credibility or ‘symbolic
capital’, as Bourdieu would call it. Credibility is social energy and, for its part,
exerts effects on the opportunities an actor has in a given field of action at a given
moment in time. Knowledge is thus a subjective and interactive factor of the
actor’s position in a field. This counts particularly in the religious field, as we will
see below. The practical logic of actors thus intervenes in the structuring pro-
cesses of the logic of a given praxis. It is precisely the interaction between these
logics that overcomes the separation of ‘words’ and ‘wars’, of actor and structure.
The operations of practical logic in language are central to our interests.26
Before we go into more detail, we would like to mention a methodological
principle that Bourdieu gives for the praxeological treatment of a linguistic
utterance, such as a text. According to Wittgenstein, it is taken as an operation
within a social context so that the meaning of a sign results from its use. This
means that, if linguistic operations are understood as operations of practical
logic, they will be sociologically translated.
In place of grammaticalness [the sociological translation] puts the notion

of acceptability, or, to put it another way, in place of ‘the’ language
24 Cf. von Stuckrad (“Religion and Science in Transformation”) in chapter nine of this
volume.
25 This is definitely also the case if discourses and genres are “disembedded” due to global-
ization (Fairclough 2003: 67–70). Even if symbols are transposed from one context to
another, in the new context, they represent—at least to a certain degree—what the
receivers connote to the context of origin and, above all, to the relation they sense towards
the origin of the symbols. Even the completely disembedded use of cargo boxes in the
Melanesian cargo cult reflects an unbalanced relation of power.
26 On style in non-verbal, everyday practices of different social classes, see Bourdieu 2010.
Bourdieu’s writings on language are cited in the introduction to this article.
166 Schäfer et al.
(langue), the notion of the legitimate language. In place of relations of

communication (or symbolic interaction) it puts relations of symbolic
power, and so replaces the question of the meaning of speech with the
question of the value and power of speech. Lastly, in place of specifically
linguistic competence, it puts symbolic capital, which is inseparable from
the speaker’s position in the social structure.
BOURDIEU 1977b: 646
Bourdieu has been criticized for overemphasizing formal aspects of language

as well as for downplaying semantics and the power of language as such (for
instance, argumentative speech). While Bourdieu himself is responsible for
most of these critiques due to unnecessarily exaggerated statements and over-
stated polemics, a close reading of his writings on language shows interesting
inroads into the analysis of the form and content of discourses—albeit cer-
tainly not as sophisticated as those of Fairclough and many socio-linguists.
Bourdieu analyzes the question of form—grammaticalness, phonetics, and
codes of politeness—in the context of social power-broking, strongly empha-
sizing the social significance of form. He also presents a dense work on seman-
tics and semiotics—for example, in his analyses of the habitūs in Kabyle
society as well as in France, in his critique of Heidegger’s philosophy, and in
some remarks on religious praxis. Most of this work relies upon structuralist
techniques, such as the reconstruction of binary series and paradigmatic
transformations. On these grounds, Bourdieu unveils ideological mechanisms
of legitimation27—for example, in the philosophical literature by Heidegger.
Moreover, he pays much attention to naturalization and euphemization as
ideological functions of language. Structuralist heritage is also present in the
duality of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, which seem to guide much
of Bourdieu’s work on language. From this scheme, he develops insights on the
social dynamics of both identification and distinction and, further, shows how
mobilization takes place through collective identity formation and how the
dynamics of symbolic representation turn social.28 In another context, he
shows how semantic relations29 such as polysemy function as translators of
practical schemes between one field and another—a highly important linguis-
tic function in religious discourse! The fact that language can exert power for
27 Cf. Fairclough 2003: 87–104.

28 Cf. Bourdieu 2006: 220–228.
29 Cf. Bourdieu 1990b: 86, 92; cf. Fairclough 2003: 123–133., including more text-analytic
depth.
Bourdieu is primarily due to the social position of the speaker.30 However, he

also recognizes the power of semantics through the seemingly simple opera-
tion of naming, which may be set forth in slogans, political idees forces, collec-
tive emblems, media opinions, political principles, religious truths, etc., and
which might succeed in redefining the nomos of a given field or even of a whole
nation,31 and may produce misrecognition and symbolic violence. Naming can
be an instrument in a struggle over the future of society, all the more if it trans-
forms into recognition, mandate, mission, authority, delegation, codification,
and institutionalization—that is, into a means of governance.32
While all of these aspects of linguistic operations are easily compatible with
internal text analyses, there are two important observations about practical
logic that limit such compatibility. First, practical logic is not completely con-
clusive. Rather, it is fuzzy, changing, and partly illogical.33 A logically rigorous
analysis may thus arrive at an illogical result—and it is precisely the logical
inconclusiveness of given discourses and practices that is useful for the practi-
tioner. Second, texts and similar objects can never be analyzed in view of their
immanent relations alone; neither is it sufficient to check their inter-textual
relations. As in the Wittgensteinian tradition, meaning derives from use—the
social context of production and reception of the text is conducive to any
analysis. However, the context is not sufficiently conceived as the overall social
structure (social space). In addition, the dynamics of specific, differentiated
spheres of production and consumption (fields) and their influence on the
production and reception of the text at stake must also be taken into account.34
We may add here that the interpretation of a given discourse needs still another
orientation: the operators of the practical sense of the author and the users
who orient and limit the practical logic that operates in the document and
makes it work—as a text—in the social context. In other words, in order to
understand a discursive operation, it is recommended that one is informed
about habitus, about relevant fields, and about social space.
As a consequence of our considerations thus far, in the following chapter,
we will construct models for the analysis of the practical sense of actors, the
religious field, and the social space of religious habitūs. These models can be
triangulated and thus represent the conditions for the relational operations of
practical logic.
30 Cf. Bourdieu 2006, 107.

31 Cf. Bourdieu 2006: 190; cf. Fairclough 2003: 26–31.
32 Cf. Bourdieu 2010: 482–483.; cf. Fairclough 2003: 32–38, 45–47.
33 Cf. Bourdieu 1990b: 87. This is also true even for the dispositions of the habitus.
34 Cf. Bourdieu 1993: 174ff.
168 Schäfer et al.
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Part 2
Contexts and Cases
∵
chapter 8
Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life:

Tools of Observation

and Jens Köhrsen
[The principle of action] lies in the complicity between two states of

the social, between history in bodies and history in things, or, more pre-
cisely, between the history objectified in the form of structures and
mechanisms (those of the social space or of fields) and the history
incarnated in bodies in the form of habitus, a complicity which is the
basis of a relation of quasi-magical participation between these two
realizations of history. Habitus, the product of a historical acquisition,
is what enables the legacy of history to be appropriated. Just as the let-
ter escapes from the state of a dead letter only through the act of read-
ing which presupposes an acquired aptitude for reading and deciphering,
so the history objectified in instruments, monuments, works, tech-
niques, etc. can become activated and active history only if it is taken in
hand by agents who, because of their previous investments, are inclined
to be interested in it and endowed with the aptitudes needed to
reactivate it.
pierre bourdieu 2000: 150–51
The present article is the second of two contributions that discuss theoretical,
methodological, and empirical aspects of the praxeological study of religion.
HabitusAnalysis—our overarching approach—aims at grasping praxis and
theory thereof under the condition formulated in the epigraph above. The
principle of praxis lies in the ‘complicity’ between embodied and objectified
history—between, on the one hand, the cognitive (emotional and bodily) dis-
positions that generate people’s thoughts and, on the other hand, the social
structures that generate their living conditions. Hence, discourses and prac-
tices are extremely important, since they constitute that complicity and also
constantly transform it. Analyses of the practical sense of the actors, of their
discourses and practices, and of the social structures in which they live there-
fore need to be closely intertwined if researchers aim at understanding

176 Schäfer et al.
praxis—religious and non-religious alike. If this is the case, then empirical

study and theory ought to communicate back and forth as well.
In this chapter, we adhere to praxeological theory in order to develop some
practical research tools. This chapter is divided from our first contribution by
the separation of theory from empirical cases; however—as we have said
above1—we are quite sure that the close relation in praxeology between modes
and tools of observation will bridge that gap. In the following pages, we will
concentrate on models and tools for analyzing the practical sense of actors,
discourses and practices, fields of praxis, and the overall social space. The tools
can be triangulated so that the ‘complicity’ between embodied and objectified
history is rendered visible.
Religious Sense—Dispositions, Identities, and Strategies
In order to understand the practical sense of religious actors (individuals,

movements, institutions, etc.) and the practical logic it projects into their prac-
tices and discourses, we have developed and tested a method to analyze the
operators of the practical sense as the strongest qualitative instrument of
HabitusAnalysis. The method builds upon various theoretical ideas linked to
Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, practical sense, and practical logic. First,
Bourdieu conceives of the logic according to which the practical sense operates
as a network of semantic oppositions. These are linked to each other in a vari-
ety of combinations over “longer or shorter pathways” and correspond to a cer-
tain hierarchical order (Bourdieu 1990b: 269 f.). This idea of a semantic network
proved to be methodologically fruitful. Second, the semantic oppositions in the
network facilitate describing operations with meaning in the vein of structural-
ism, such as syntagmatic and paradigmatic series, metaphorical transpositions,
and the creation of homologies. Additionally, it allows us to reconstruct basic
logic operations such as implication, negation, and affirmation. Third, Bourdieu
underscores that the habitus is generative; it generates meaning and action.
Consequently, the method models not simply a structure, but rather the modus
operandi of the practical sense. It allows us to reconstruct the transformations
between perception, judgment, and action-orientation that produce meaning
and practices, identity and strategy. Fourth, the practical sense is intimately
related to the social context of an actor. It processes experience. Therefore, the
method integrates the actors’ experiences with their meaning ascription,
modeling the production of meaning and action by transformations between
1 See the introduction to Chapter 7.

experience, assessment, and strategic perspectives. Fifth, the analysis of practical

sense concentrates on language, especially on semantic content—as Bourdieu
also does in his work on habitus. We developed a specific instrument for inter-
viewing in order to benefit from the interview as the silver bullet of qualitative
research, but the method also applies to other linguistic material. While cogni-
tive transformations may be crucial for the qualitative reconstruction of praxis,
they are only one aspect of the operations of the habitus; emotional and bodily
operations are important as well, and the visual or auditory aspects of practices
call for attention, too. Therefore, the model of the practical sense may be
extended to these dimensions of research, and additionally, the aspect of style
is addressed by the model of the social space. Finally, the model links up to
positive and negative experiences. Consequently, particularly with regard to
negative experiences, it relates well to all theories of human praxis that refer
to people coping with various kinds of challenges, threats, risks, problems, or
situations of contingency. Inasmuch as an important function of religion is
answering religious demands with promises of salvation, the method proves
especially useful for the analysis of religious praxis.
Method and Model

The method used for the reconstruction of the practical sense employs two
models that represent two levels of analysis. The first step is to analyze inter-
views (or other texts) by applying the model of the ‘praxeological square’ as a
heuristic means. Second, a network model is built by developing a network of
multiple semantic transformations from the material collected in the praxeo-
logical square. The result is a multiplicity of squares, combined by logic rela-
tions and loaded with different semantics that are related to different fields of
experience.
The model of the praxeological square is based upon some very basic and
very common assumptions. Social actors (individual or collective) perceive,
judge, and act according to a (considerably but not thoroughly) coherent prac-
tical logic. The operations that take place in the related cognitive and affective
processes involve positive and negative value ascription as well as the interpre-
tation of experience in a very general sense. This simple observation already
leads to four terms: negative and positive experience, and interpretation of
negative and positive experience. In the tradition of logic, a model of four
terms, based on Aristotle and compiled by Apuleius, has been used to organize
propositions. In the twentieth century, the model was transformed for semi-
otic analysis by Greimas and Rastier (1971). For its use in social science, we
transformed the logic model into a praxeological model by introducing and
distinguishing the levels of experience and interpretation.
178 Schäfer et al.
This praxeological square facilitates insights into the ‘cognitive maps’

and the regularities of cognitive transformations of individual and collec-
tive actors (Schäfer 2009b: 6) as well as into the processes of transforma-
tion from perception, through judgment, to action (Schäfer 2005: 267). In
other words, an actor’s utterances can be analyzed as operators of praxis
(Schäfer 2003: 229).
While we cannot go into detail regarding the different levels of the model
(cognition, identity, etc.) here, we will directly apply the model to religious
movements. In order to understand the transformations, it is best to begin
with negative experience.
The actors utter such negative experiences (1) as some kind of grievance,
uncertainty, and/or threat. They counter (2) these experiences with the spe-
cific promise of salvation of their group—their hope, their most important
religious beliefs (which corresponds to ‘interpretation [positive]’ in the model).
From this promise, they derive their self-description (3), since the promise of
salvation—the positive reference to transcendence, the central belief—coins
special forms of religious praxis, including rituals, distinctive practices,
communities, institutions, etc.2 This term models the self-description and
The praxeological square: religiosity and religous movements
Positive Negative
Promise of salvation The evil (as reason for

interpretation problems)
experience Saving faith and Grievances,

practices(community) uncertainties,
threats
Formation of religious identity

Formation of religious strategy
Figure 8.1 Square of religious movements
2 For details on our concept of religious praxis and its operationalization for research, see
Chapter 7 and the literature quoted there.
self-positioning of the group in question (its ‘positive experience’) in opposi-

tion to the problems the group faces (its ‘negative experience’). These three
steps combine to form the basic transformation, which models the generation
of identity of the group or movement. The second transformation models the
generation of strategy. From their practices and institutions ([3], ‘positive
experience’), the actors face the articulated grievances and, most importantly,
they ascribe reasons and causes to the grievances ([4], ‘interpretation
[negative]’)—that is, they name the evil, which can adopt many faces. Knowing
the reasons for the grievances, the actors can design the appropriate strategies
to combat the grievances, even at their roots. Thus, the transformation that
models the strategy of the actor makes the following moves: from the practices
of saving faith ([3], ‘positive experience’), through naming some specific evil as
the reason for the grievances ([4], ‘interpretation [negative]’), to countering
the grievances (‘negative experience’).3 Thus, the square closely combines the
formation of both identity and strategy (cf. Figure 8.1).
With this in mind, it is useful to extend the model of the square to one of a
whole network of operators by analyzing the interviews in more depth (Schäfer
2015; 2009a). The results of analyzing syntactic relations facilitate the c ombination
of many isomorphic squares in a network. The effect is a transformational cog-
nitive map that allows us to identify specific practical operators, which given
actors employ for different fields of praxis, such as religion, politics, law, fash-
ion, etc. However, exemplifying this step in methodical terms would go beyond
the limits of this article (Schäfer 2009b: 16). Nevertheless, see Figure 8.4 below
on the network of the Neopentecostals as an example.
In the following sections, we will exemplify HabitusAnalysis with two
strands of the Pentecostal movement in Guatemala during the 1980s.
Context of the Pentecostal Case

Guatemalan society in the 1980s was deeply divided into a rich, white upper
class and a very poor, mostly indigenous lower class. This social division deep-
ened during the counter-insurgency war in the late 1970s and 80s. The rural
population was strongly affected by massacres, napalm bombings, concentra-
tion of indigenous civilians in strategic hamlets, torture, and many other mea-
sures of this kind. In the capital, on the other hand, military and secret service
violence was dampened, so that the direct terror of the first phase of the war
ceased somewhat for the urban middle class, while the psychic effects of inse-
curity and violence remained.
3 It is necessary, however, to keep in mind that the model reconstructs a logical transformation
but does not depict a process in time with a beginning and an end.
180 Schäfer et al.
The samples we will address here correspond to these two social positions:
the Neopentecostals belong mainly to the modernizing urban upper-middle
and even upper classes; the Classical Pentecostals belong mostly to the tradi-
tional lower class in the countryside and in urban slums. In order to become
aware of the hermeneutical potential of HabitusAnalysis, it is helpful to real-
ize that both movements in the early 1980s operated with an almost identical
inventory of religious signs and symbols—the traditional Pentecostal one. To
researchers at that time, these movements seemed to be one and the same, so
that nobody noted a substantial difference (Martin 1990; Stoll 1990). Only
praxeological research demonstrated two very different practical logics at
work (Schäfer 1992). This is due to the fact that HabitusAnalysis—through its
qualitative interviews and interest in the practical sense—consequently trig-
gers and openly reveals the topoi that are relevant for the interviewees. This
method of interviewing guides the interviewees only by encouraging them to
articulate complementary elements of experience and interpretation with
regard to both positive and negative valuation. Moreover, triangulation with
the models of the religious field and the social space methodically relates the
practical sense of the religious actors with the logic of praxis in Guatemalan
society.
Lower-Class Pentecostals
To an enormous extent, the Pentecostals in the lower class—hereafter
referred to as ‘Classical Pentecostals’—especially in rural areas, are the vic-
tims of the war.
The following is one exceptionally open account of this experience:
Here, in Guatemala, the military government is upon us […] and they are
very greedy, they crave money […] And therefore they keep the people
under a very, very strong control.
Question: Is it possible to solve the existing problems?
That’s not possible anymore. If someone wants to solve them, the next
day he has disappeared. […] They kill him. […] You sleep soundly, and all
of a sudden they hit and kick the door, they come in and take you away
and kill you. (Interview 6)
It is not only insecurity but also the pressure of economic need, the impossibil-
ity of going to work on their land, of feeding their family, and of sending their
children to school, and, finally, the lack of any way to express their own inter-
ests through social or political mobilization. The corresponding grievances
(see Figure 8.2, position 1, negative experience) express a feeling of having lost
Praxeological square: classical Pentecostalism – traditional lower class
Discontinuity of history
Rapture of the End-times:
Level of Chruch, return of certainty of the
Interpretation Christ (A) near end (B)
Level of
experience Preparation of the Loss of future,
rapture (B) misery, Insecurity (A)
Continuity of History
Identity
Strategy
Figure 8.2 Square of classical Pentecostals
any prospect of future betterment in this life. How can one answer such a
demand and cope religiously with such a situation?
The response of Classical Pentecostalism is apocalyptic. The actors counter
their perception of the situation with the hope of the immediate return of
Christ (see Figure 8.2, position 2, interpretation [positive]). Christ is supposed
to return in the present time and ‘rapture’ the true Church out of the world’s
suffering and into heaven. In contrast to a situation without a future, faith
offers the perspective of a heavenly future. It is this scheme from which the
religious identity of these believers derives. They conceive of themselves as the
true Church in preparation for the rapture (Figure 8.2, position 3, positive expe-
rience). From this position, the explanation for their loss of future becomes
evident: during the apocalyptic end times, everything necessarily changes
from bad to worse. As one of our interviewees put it: “Well, the Bible says that
the return of Christ is near, when the signs are going to be fulfilled. […] There
will be earthquakes and wars and plagues and many other things. That is noth-
ing to be surprised about” (Interview 9). The reason for the loss of all opportu-
nities is interpreted as a logical consequence of living in the end times
(Figure 8.2, position 4, interpretation [negative]) and therefore being the
victims of a divinely necessary progression from bad to worse conditions.
Social action is not only seen as impossible (as more general predispositions of
the rural lower class might also suggest), but also as counter-productive.
182 Schäfer et al.
Accordingly, on the level of experience, we see a religious community that

faces an extensive loss of opportunities for survival. In this situation, they opt
for the following strategy: a clear break with political and social action and a
withdrawal into the community of believers—exactly the strategy that, under
repression and misery, allows survival and strengthens self-esteem through in-
group solidarity. To sum up, people in this hopeless situation counter it by
means of their hope of being raptured into heaven. As Christians in prepara-
tion for this event, they refrain from any social or political mobilization and
concentrate—de facto—on solidarity among their religious kin. We face a
strategy of withdrawal from a hopeless situation into a manageable commu-
nity of mutual support and solidarity.
Upper-Middle-Class Pentecostals
The Pentecostals in the modernizing upper-middle class—hereafter referred
to as ‘Neopentecostals’—shared the misfortune of their social class during
the late 1970s and the insurgency of the early 1980s. They suffered from eco-
nomic decline and increasing public violence as processes that deeply jeop-
ardized their commencing ascent to a dominant political role in Guatemalan
society.
For instance, they were no longer able to pay debts resulting from the pur-
chase of real estate, and they could no longer afford a car they desired; they
suffered personal setbacks such as alcoholism and bulimia as a consequence
of stress; they saw corrupt politicians at work, or they felt “an existential void”
(Interview 59/87); or else they simply felt that there “must be something better
for my life” (Interview 92). HabitusAnalysis shows that these grievances can be
summed up4 as a sense of a generalized threat to middle-class power, includ-
ing control over one’s own body (see Figure 8.3, position 1).
Neopentecostal religiosity answers this demand charismatically, focusing
on the power of the Holy Spirit (Figure 8.3, position 2), which followers can
embody in the church by attending, praying, speaking in tongues, and realizing
ecstatic practices. This embodiment of power counters the experienced loss of
control in life, and it leads to self-description as empowered individuals
(Figure 8.3, position 3). It is not the church as a community, but rather the
individual embodiment of divine power that shapes this religious style. As one
interviewee explained, baptism in the Holy Spirit is “an experience of power by
which the Holy Spirit takes control over the whole person and empowers in
4 The interpretative aggregation of meaning may employ different techniques. Schäfer has
been working with Greimas’ isotopy analysis, while Seibert employed prototype analysis.
Other options are also possible.
Praxeological square: Neopentecostals – modernizing upper middle class
Quest of power decided

Power of God in the Action of
Level of Holy Spirit(A) demons (B)
Interpretation
Level of
experience Empowered Threat to
Individuals (B) extension of
upper middle
Power threatended
class power (A)
Identity
Strategy
Figure 8.3 Square of Neopentecostals
the dimension of the Spirit, and that implies the gifts of the Spirit and all won-
ders” (Interview 101). Another interviewee said, “Power is the piled-up energy,
the energy which the Holy Spirit accumulates within us to take it out again in
case of need” (Interview 64).
From the position of empowered individuals, the believers ascribe the rea-
son for the crisis to the action of demons (Figure 8.3, position 4). Satan and his
demons control social actors that compete somehow with (upper-) middle-
class interests, such as unionists, guerrillas, indigenous people, some politi-
cians, and so forth. This was expounded in a sermon: “Brothers, we face the
reality of the ministers of Satan and their extraordinary and supernatural pow-
ers” (Sermon 97). Further, Satan afflicts an individual by taking control of his or
her life. Thus alcohol or drug misuse, bulimia, and other problems are defi-
nitely caused by demons as well. Accordingly, the strategy is an active one: “Go
to war with Satan, go to war with the demons, go to war with all difficulties,
past and future! Seize power!” (Sermon 106). Exorcism, the exclusion of the
competing other, is the favorite strategy for solving, in all areas of life, the prob-
lems conveyed by the loss of control (see the section below on “Practical
Logic”). This strategy can be experienced in one’s own body, since believers
may also be possessed by demons and are supposed to need the help of minis-
ters. The bodily experience of vomiting, for instance, together with its religious
Decay of North atlant. Latinity Social power of Cultural Indig.
184
Evangelism Catholic
Nation Capitalism Neopent. Catholic culture Charismatics
Latin Protest. Latin cult. God’s God far Power God far [Holy
Mentality Reformation heritage Power-action away of God away Spirit]
Traunion. Sprit in Adverse Power of the Demons Supernat. Specific Power of

Pentec culture Powers Spirit Powers Demons Spirit
Unorderly Extasis Probl.of chr. Empowered Loss of Pastoral Rooted Minister

spirituality in church Life Individuals controll Authority conflicts
[ritualistic Spirit. Moral Soc.Influen. Theratening Pol. repres- Pol. struggle Soc.res-
Piety] life Decay of Neopent. soc. probl of Neopent. right/left ponsability
[false Esch. David. Adverse God as Devil Gods power Conflict Politics of
Church] Restauration Powers power basis in Neopent. parties neop. members
Dominion of Suffering Foes of God Gods action Devil Neop. Org. Devil in Neop. Org.
Antichrist Neopent. in Guate. in prosperity a members pol. advers. a. memebers
System of Survival Attacks on Economic Economic Political Violence Social

Antichrist in Suffering Neopent. Prosperity Problems Evangelism evangelism
Figure 8.4 Network of Neopentecostals

Schäfer et al.
interpretation as exorcizing a demon, serves as a cognitive and emotional

anchor for the plausibility of exorcism as an overall social strategy for problem
solving.
The transposition or ‘reconversion’ (Bourdieu) of specific operators to other
fields can easily be noted when constructing the network of dispositions.
The model of the network reveals the homologies between the practical
logics of different fields. Metaphors and the presupposition that, in this
world, things work more or less the same way generate plausibility for the
legitimacy of similarities. Obedience to God, to the king, and to the father
seems to be almost the same thing. Thus, it is not very surprising that
Neopentecostal believers in the Guatemalan counter-insurgency war found it
quite plausible to expel demons from ‘Indians’ by means of military force—
not least napalm b ombings—and that they designed religious and political
discourses in that way.
In contrast to the Classical Pentecostals of the same period, the Neopente
costals’ religious praxis orbits power. It is not directed toward a heavenly future.
Rather, it serves as a higher means to prosperity, as the so-called Prosperity
Gospel proclaims: “The will of God is that we live befitting our social status.
And God is mighty enough to satisfy our needs” (Sermon 36).
To sum up, upper-middle-class citizens feel that an overall crisis in society
challenges their control over their own economic, political, and personal lives.
They cope with this situation by clinging to a belief in empowerment through
the Holy Spirit in order to be able to fight the demons, which cause the loss of
control. They fight with techniques of exorcism in the most diverse fields of
social praxis. As this social class still has (in contrast to the lower class) real
opportunities to act in society, religious mobilization serves to concentrate
power and to sharpen the strategy. Thus, in contrast to the former example, we
face a strategy of dominion.
Different Identities
Our analysis of practical religious operators structuring the practical sense of
religious actors has revealed two very different religious identities and strate-
gies, in spite of the fact that the two currents of the Pentecostal movement
analyzed here draw on the same repertoire, or inventory, of signs. Both share
the history of Pentecostal mission in their country and the theology preached
by classical Pentecostalism. Nevertheless, each current developed a specific
way of molding its religious identity, its strategies, its discourses, and its prac-
tices out of a selective reception of that tradition and an equally selective
reception of new impulses. A significant example in this regard was the initia-
tive of a well-known religious radio commentator, who insisted on substituting
186 Schäfer et al.
a pre-millennial concept of the future with a post-millennial one.5 This initia-

tive was as fiercely rejected by the lower-class Pentecostals as it was welcomed
by the actors belonging to the upper-middle class.
The differences observed in the practical sense of the two samples strikingly
coincides with different positions in the social space of religious styles, and it
amounts to competitive positions between these groups in the religious field.
The religious habitūs, the strategies, the discourses, and the practices of our
sample groups can only be sufficiently understood if we take the social space
and the religious field into account as well.6
Logic of Religious Praxis—The Religious Field and the Space of

Religious Styles
The concept ‘logic of praxis’, in our wording, refers to the objective aspect of
praxis—that is, the processes and regularities induced by objectified and sta-
ble social conditions, such as institutions, law, economic production, shared
linguistic rules, and so forth. Hence, logic of praxis relates directly to theories
of social structure. Basically, two veins of theories have been formative during
the last century: one of ‘vertical’ differences between social classes according
to their access to the means of production (Marx), and the other of ‘horizontal’
differentiation according to the division of labor or function (Durkheim).
Bourdieu integrates both aspects into his models. He uses, among others, the
concepts of ‘field’ and ‘space’ to refer to the objective conditions of human
praxis as ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ inequality. The notion of ‘field’ serves
more to refer to functionally different spheres of praxis (such as economy
versus politics versus sports, etc.) and their respective ongoing struggles over
5 The pre-millennial concept claims that human beings cannot contribute to the coming of
the kingdom of God, while the post-millennial theory sees people as crafting the kingdom
through social and political change.
6 We would like to mention here that the influences of social position and field dynamics on
habitus formation can differ strongly, depending on the empirical case. While in Guatemala
during the 1980s the influence of social positions on the habitus was a clue for interpretation,
this is not necessarily always the case. In contrast, our project in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Seibert
2014) demonstrated a much stronger relative influence of the religious field on habitus-building.
This is due to the different roles of economic capital and of ethno-religious differentiation in
the social structures of each of the two societies. While this chapter does not focus on inter-
cultural comparison, this observation may serve two purposes: first, to indicate the limita-
tions of the regional results of applying the models; and second, to signal that the models of
social space and religious field can be used as instruments for intercultural comparison.
f ield-specific revenues and power. The concept of ‘social space’ is designated to

model the structure of a society and the overall distribution of goods and
power. Both fields and space are constructed by referring to different forms of
capital. As capital exists not only in an objectified state but also as embodied
capital, the notion serves to combine the objective conditions of human praxis
with its subjective, embodied conditions—that is, the dispositions that oper-
ate in practical logic.
Moreover, ‘space’ and ‘fields’ share strictly relational principles of construc-
tion, since “the real is relational” (Bourdieu 1998: 3). Any actor in a field or a
space is defined by relations to others—in other words, by the position they
occupy with regard to the positions of other actors. They are not defined by any
intrinsic or essential characteristics they might have. A class, according to
Bourdieu, is not a “historical subject” mobilized against its enemy, but a “class
on paper” (Bourdieu 1990a: 117)—that is, a position in a coordinate system,
theoretically constructed according to a defined interest of research. Hence, a
social space or a field presents a kind of “social topology” (Müller 1992: 262;
Bourdieu 1998: 4–8) in which the actors are assigned to positions, locations, or
agglomerations of actors that are defined according to the type, the amount,
and the composition of resources with which the actors are endowed.
This principle of the relational construction of social reality opens flexible
possibilities for relating habitus to fields and social space and for describing
correspondences between social positions and religious habitus. The practical
sense of the actors analyzed can be related to certain positions in the field,
thus revealing correspondences between positions and dispositions, logic of
praxis and practical logic. Our ‘social space of religious styles’ simply applies
Bourdieu’s model of space to religion; in contrast, our ‘religious field’ trans-
forms Bourdieu’s field of art and develops a scalable model for surveys.
The Social Space of Religious Styles

The model of the social space draws on the sociological traditions of Karl Marx
and Max Weber. It depicts class relations according to economic and cultural
capital. It represents the existing distribution of two forms of capital at a given
point in time. Thus, the distribution can be understood both as the result of
past struggles and the condition of present and future moves that different
classes of actors are able to realize (Bourdieu 2010).
In order to reconstruct a class in empirical research, the material living
conditions, measured particularly by economic capital, are an important indi-
cator. However, we subscribe to Bourdieu’s sophisticated class theory, which
does not reduce cultural factors to a hierarchical differentiation of classes, but
rather conceives of culture as a productive factor for class positioning—in the
188 Schäfer et al.
form of different lifestyles, for instance. Thus, social positions are defined not
only by different quantities of capital, but also by their qualitative traits, such
as style or habitus—styles and habitūs of consumption as well as religious
styles. We also follow Bourdieu with regard to the methodological aim of
generating a model that reveals the correspondence between “positions
and dispositions.”7 Nevertheless, we depart from quite different methodical
conditions.
Modeling the Social Space of Religious Habitūs

Bourdieu’s model of the social space as presented in Distinction is based upon
categorical data operationalizing lifestyle attributes, the distribution of which
is plotted according to Multiple Correspondence Analysis (mca). It is this pro-
cedure that generates the positions of attributes and groups registered in the
model.8
In contrast, we depart from collective habitūs in the form of networks of
shared dispositions resulting from in-depth analysis of qualitative interviews.
As systems of classification, they are a reliable basis for mapping the relation
between positions and dispositions, at least from the side of the dispositions.
However, they are not subjected to a calculus that generates positions, since the
logical relations modeled in the praxeological square are much more complex
than the frequency of co-occurrences of categorical values measured by mca.9
Thus, in our model, positions are generated in a Cartesian space, of which the
first axis scales income and the second education, both with reference to the
actors in the qualitative samples and to society more broadly.10 These data can
be organized in a simple scatter-plot, relating income and education. The plot
is rotated along a line of best fit, which becomes the vertical axis of the social
7 Bourdieu 1998, 7–8. See also Bourdieu 2010, 95.

8 Economic and cultural capital result in this case from the alignment of certain attributes
in the space. For some difficulties of the method see Bourdieu 2010, 506–507.
9 Admittedly, on the side of the positions (understood as classes) the informational density
provided by the variables of our model is thinner than that generated by mca of lifestyle
attributes. On the other hand, the fully-fledged analysis of the practical sense by means of
the praxeological square contributes well-ordered categories of the habitūs and lifestyles
to the models of both social space and religious field.
10 Our model is developed building upon Bourdieu’s basic structure of the social space as
explained in Bourdieu 2010, 108–164 and in Bourdieu 1998, 5–8. It makes data collection
feasible, even in difficult environments such as poorly developed Third World countries.
In the habitus-interviews and in larger quantitative surveys we collect the equivalized
household income as indicator of economic capital and register the educational levels
after the isced scale as indicator of cultural capital.
space, representing the total amount of capital. A perpendicular line across the
mean values of both variables becomes the axis of capital composition, the
horizontal axis of the space. Positions in the upper scales of the vertical axis
gather high amounts of both income and (formal) education. The horizontal
axis represents, on the right, relatively more economic capital than cultural
capital, and a vice-versa composition on the left. This means that positions with
the same level on the vertical scale can be differentiated, on the horizontal
scale, according to the structure (or composition) of their capital. The idea will
quickly become evident by imagining different professional categories in the
figure: for instance, ‘technological industrialists’ compared to ‘large landown-
ers’, ‘teachers’ compared to ‘middle farmers’, or ‘small peasants’ compared to
‘skilled labor’ (cf. Figure 8.5). Thus, the model serves as a frame to pinpoint the
relevant actors according to their position within the general distribution of
capital in society.
Finally, the different dispositions of religious actors, identified through
analysis using the praxeological square, are matched with the positions of
the respective actors in the model of the social space.11 Thus, the model
The social space of religious habitus – Guatemala 1985

Gross capital
volume +
Technolog. industrialists Large Landowners
Neo- Managers Old military
Pentecostals
New military
Merchants
Administration
Cultural capital + Cultural capital -
Economic capital – Teachers Middle farmers Economic captial +
Skilled labour
Small peasants Classical

peons Pentecostals
Marginalized
= Neopentecostal actors Gross capital

= Pentecostal actors volume -
Figure 8.5 The social space of religious Habitūs
11 On superimposing habitūs as an additional layer on the space model, see Bourdieu 2010:
120–164.
190 Schäfer et al.
allows us to interpret the concentration or dispersion of clusters of specific

religious habitūs and styles with regard to the social conditions of their gen-
esis and the amount of capital (social energy) that corresponds to the differ-
ent religious habitūs. In any case, our social space can also be complemented
by and compared with an mca-based space, if the corresponding type of data
is available.
The Guatemalan Space of Religious Habitūs

We will only sketch very briefly the two samples discussed above, the Classical
Pentecostals and the Neopentecostals. According to basic socio-structural data
(income and education), the interviewees of the two samples are distributed
in a way that reflects the strong polarization of Guatemalan society. The
Neopentecostal sample belongs to the modernizing, urban, middle, upper-
middle, and even upper class: industrialists, higher- and middle-management,
military officials, physicians, and lawyers, but also administrative employees
and university students. The Classical Pentecostals belong to the traditional
(partly indigenous) lower class in the countryside and in urban slums: day
laborers, small peasants, unschooled proletarians, street sellers, guards, cook-
shop workers, kiosk owners, and so forth. Relating these findings to our analy-
sis of the religious practical sense of these two collective actors, we discover
that the practical sense responds strongly to the social positions of the actors.
However, the social positions alone do not explain the religious dispositions of
these religious actors sufficiently. The competitive logic of the religious field
also shapes their identities and strategies.
The Religious Field

Bourdieu addresses the functional differentiation of modern societies with the
concept of field. In analogy to what Weber called ‘spheres of value’, Bourdieu
conceives fields of praxis as ruled by their specific ‘nomoi’. These “principles of
vision and division” (Bourdieu 1995: 95) establish specific rules of engagement
for specific social contexts that regulate the logic according to which actors
strive for goods or money, for knowledge, artistic prestige, political power,
etc.12 Actors are immersed in the games played in different fields according to
their sense of each game, and they valuate the sorts of capital they have at their
disposal in different ways. For the analysis of the relation between the practical
sense of actors and the social structures, this means that the particular dynam-
ics of different fields also effect the dispositions and practices of actors. Both
dynamics—that of the overall social position and that of the field-specific
12 Bourdieu 1983, 1995; see also Seibert 2010; Schäfer 2014.

challenges—interfere with one another. One relation ‘refracts’ the other. In

order to take this refraction effect into account, the relevant fields for the
actors observed should be modeled in addition to the social space. In our case,
this is the religious field.
Modeling the Religious Field

In order to model the religious field, we draw on Bourdieu’s model of the
field of cultural production (Bourdieu 1983). The field is designed as a two-
dimensional model, with one axis representing the achievement of eminence
(arrivée) and the other standing for authenticity. Achievement and authentic-
ity can easily be adapted to religion.
With regard to religious organizations, achievement of eminence13 can best
be described as religious complexity—that is, the relation between the per-
formers and the audience of the organization. Basically, this concept goes back
to Weber’s distinction between church and sect. The former is conceived as an
established institution with a relatively small number of performers taking
care of a relatively large number of laypersons, and the latter as an exclusive
(or even esoteric) assembly of activists without a passive audience whatsoever.
Yinger (1970: 259–262) refined this binary distinction to the more elaborate
concept of religious complexity, a version to which we are mostly staying true
here. From an actor-centered perspective, and without going much into detail,
we can state that the higher an organization’s complexity, the bigger the poten-
tial public impact of the experts working in it. Complexity thus connotes
objectified capital and logic of praxis.
Religious authenticity is a less objectively addressable notion, as it mostly
stands for the image of being an agent of the ‘true’ religion. Public credibility as
an agent of religion can be elicited by randomized household surveys of the
population, which ask for opinions with regard to the religious and social com-
petences of the actors in the focus of a given research project. The dimension
of credibility thus denotes the embodied capital of the religious actors and
their practical logic, as perceived by the public.
In a nutshell, while credibility denotes a religious organization’s presence,
autonomy, and resilience with regard to compromise, complexity denotes its
resolve, stability, and operating distance. Consequently, if the factors of
13 Arrivée literally translates into English as arrival, but Bourdieu uses it as a scalable term,
denoting the benefits of having arrived in a given society—and strongly connoting spe-
cific social roles, such as established conservatives (high degree of arrivée) or not-yet-
settled avant-garde (low degree of arrivée). After deliberations with American experts, we
opt for translation into English as ‘achievement of eminence’.
192 Schäfer et al.
credibility and complexity are known, it is eventually possible to construct a

two-dimensional model of the religious organization’s potential power for
mobilization within its specific social context—in our case, the organization’s
religious capital.14
The model of the field as such is a simple, two-dimensional plot and allows
us to distinguish clusters of religious organizations according to their scores of
credibility and complexity. The diagonal between the lowest and the highest
scores accordingly designates the difference between less and more dominant
positions in the field.
The Guatemalan Religious Field

The religious field in Guatemala during the 1980s still had quite a stable struc-
ture, since the oldest and largest organization, the Catholic Church (see
Figure 8.6, upper right), combines the highest scores in both credibility and
organizational complexity, and the other organizations are mostly aligned
with the axis between the weakest and the most dominant positions.15
Nevertheless, two important competitors are present in the field. The Classical
Pentecostals (Figure 8.6, upper left) have quite a high score for credibility (with
a medium score in organizational complexity), competing by means of reli-
gious messages and practices. The Neopentecostals (Figure 8.6, lower right)
compete not as much through originally religious organizational power as they
do by compromising the religious field through the amount of money they
invest in religious endeavors (such as tv preaching) and through the political
positions of quite a few of their leading members. Thus, they exert influence
on the public, not least on politics. This multiple compromise of the religious
field through alien types of capital makes the Neopentecostals appear as the
main religious competitor of the Classical Pentecostals and even boosts
their role as a public detractor of the Catholic hierarchy. Finally, the small,
14 In sociology, the term social capital is used to describe an actor’s capacity for social mobi-
lization, while religious capital stands for the capacity for social mobilization by numi-
nous authority. Traditionally, social capital is described either as a matter of trust or in the
form of networks—or, to use terms more specific for the sociology of religion, as charisma
or institutionalization (Haug 1997). For our method, institutionalization translates
directly into complexity, while charisma and credibility should rather be seen as epiphe-
nomenon and phenomenon.
15 The construction of the religious field in the 1980s is a rough estimation based on a year
of field study, 100 interviews with practitioners, additional expert interviews, and, of
course, literature. In contrast, the presently running project on Guatemala and Nicaragua
has rendered sufficient data to reconstruct the religious field for 2013 on a sound statisti-
cal basis.
The religious field: Guatemala 1985

Credibility + Nomos
“true religion”
– Degree of sovereinty of religious specialists +
High credibility Traditionally dominant

in war- Classical Pentecostals, position; credibility
condition; (established sect) questioned through war
Traditional Catholicism, condition; high religious
middle range
(Autonomy, authenticity)
(church) organization.
organization.
Neopentecostals,
(established sect)
National Pentecostals, Relatively low credibility because of class restriction;

(sect) relatively low religious organization, but potent (political)
Low credibility; influence through money and office[compromise]
low organization.
Organization +
– Degree of achievement of religious organizations +
(“arrive”, consecration)
Figure 8.6 The religious field
independent National Pentecostals occupy a weak religious position (Figure 8.6,

lower left) and do not have financial capital at their disposal in order to try to
compromise the religious field. Hence, they do not perform as effective com-
petitors, either with the Catholic Church or with the Classical Pentecostals. In
spite of an objective position in the field relatively close to the Neopentecostals,
the independent Pentecostals do not compete with the Neopentecostals either.
This is due to an effect of the overall social structure, in which the independent
churches are limited to a lower-class clientele and simply do not have the
means or the appropriate habitus and style to address the middle, upper-
middle, or upper classes.
Practical Logic—The Interpretation of Religious Discourses

and Practices
Once we have established the models of the practical sense, the social struc-
ture, and the dynamics of the religious field, these three models can be trian-
gulated. Thus, they offer a consistent theoretical and methodological frame, as
194 Schäfer et al.
well as sound empirical insight, in order to analyze the linkages between actor
and structure, performed by the operations of the practical logic in discourses
and practices.
The description of practical logic links ‘words’ and ‘wars’, dispositions and
positions, meaning and power. Methodologically, one interprets the way in
which the operations of practical logic and those of the logic of praxis interlace
(under the conditions of habitūs and structures) and generate discourses and
practices that constitute praxis. In this chapter, we accomplish this with spe-
cial regard to religious actors and their discourses. The models of the social
sense, the religious field, and the social space now serve as auxiliary instru-
ments to interpret the practical logic.
Conditions—Triangulating the Models

The actors (individual and collective alike) appear in the three models in sig-
nificantly different ways. First, we depict the actors as networks of dispositions
that show fundamental traits of their identities and strategies. Second and
third, we position such networks—according to objective data on the actors,
such as income and education—within the power relations in different fields
and in the social space. Thus, we associate the identities and strategies of given
actors with their specific accumulated capital (possession) and with their par-
ticular opportunities and constraints (function). In doing so, similar disposi-
tions are supposed to cluster as ‘habitus formations’ in similar positions in the
social space and in the religious field. Thus, they can be interpreted with regard
to their different positions.16 This triangulation of the formal models provides
valuable information for the interpretation of the discourses and practices of
given actors as practical logic, taking into account the subjective and objective
conditions of their generation.
Discourses and Practices—The Guatemalan Case

As shown above, we can distinguish a Neopentecostal habitus of charismatic
dominion over the world, on the one hand, from a habitus of apocalyptic
escape from the world among the Classical Pentecostals, on the other hand.
Both movements creatively use the Pentecostal symbolic repertoire in accor-
dance with the specific challenges of their social class, and both develop cor-
responding religious identities, strategies, and practical logics. Indeed, the
striking religious difference between these two habitus formations—in spite
of a common religious vocabulary—can hardly be explained if not by recourse
16 If they do not cluster in a significant way, this fact also can be interpreted by taking into
account additional information.
to the objective social structure. The sample groups occupy very different posi-
tions in the social space, and these positions were also polarized by the dynam-
ics of a counter-insurgency war waged by a dictatorial government in the 1980s.
In this context, lower-class people are under general suspicion of supporting
the guerrilla movement and are directly threatened by the military. In contrast,
the (upper-) middle class is rather supportive of the military regime because of
its fear of losing its privileges. With regard to the religious discourses and prac-
tices of these collective actors, it is important to consider another objective
factor. The war in Guatemala was not a religious identity-conflict in the sense
that religious belonging was a means of mobilizing people for violence.17
Rather, it was a classical conflict of political and economic interests. Religious
discourses and practices therefore played a secondary role. They served to
address the drastic changes of opportunities and constraints induced by the
war and, according to the positions of different groups, to mobilize or to demo-
bilize politically. However, far from being a ‘dependent variable’, socially dif-
ferentiated religious praxis develops particular strategies to organize the lives
of the believers and their social presence in specific ways.
During the war, the modernizing upper-middle class was under double
pressure, exerted by the old oligarchy as well as by the guerrilla movement.
Additionally, it suffered from economic decay and political violence. However,
this class had sufficient means to articulate its interests politically and even
militarily. In such a situation, Neopentecostal practical logic offered ways to
recover personal stability and strength as well as ways to learn and to legiti-
mate exclusivist strategies (exorcism) in order to engage effectively in social
conflicts. These actors were inclined to employ their religious identity for the
sake of political goals. ‘Spiritual warfare’ was a central slogan, a religious idée-
force by which this movement directly engaged in the situation of military war-
fare, largely identifying with the dictatorial government.
A first observation explains a general trait of the discursive religious strate-
gies of the Neopentecostal movement during the 1980s. In spite of the war, the
actors still had a relatively wide range of opportunities for social and political
action. In consequence, they applied religious discourse to almost all fields of
social, cultural, political, and military issues they considered relevant (see
Figure 8.4). Instead of a rigorous church-world dichotomy, in their practical
logic the whole society was the object of a ‘Christian’ transformation. This
17 This is the case, for instance, in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Seibert 2014) or among radical
Islamist movements (Schäfer 2008). In these cases, religious belonging becomes the pri-
mary means for political and military mobilization and, therefore, a key factor in the
social structure.
196 Schäfer et al.
implied the need for social self-positioning by religious means. For this pur-
pose, Neopentecostal groups didn’t only employ the semiotics of social distinc-
tion, selecting exclusive places for their meetings (such as five star hotels); on
many occasions, members and leaders also underscored that their groups
gathered personas de categoría. This social ‘category’ is symbolically trans-
formed into the immediate recognition of these persons by God himself
through pure grace (without religious merit).18 Correspondingly, the endow-
ment of the believers with the power of the Holy Spirit was not restricted by
conditions such as catechumenate, speaking in tongues, or similar practices.
The verbal proclamation of the Spirit’s power over the believers was ritually
corroborated by the practices of praise (alabanza) in the church services,
which were understood as direct contact with the Holy Spirit. The immediate
result for the believers was their empowerment in relation to their social envi-
ronment. They were said to be competent to solve—primarily—their personal
problems (drinking, bulimia, sexuality, etc.) and—secondarily—the problems
of society (workers’ unions, social movements, left-wing parties, guerrilla, etc.).
However, in relation to their religious environment, their power appears to
have been derived from the power of the religious leaders.
In order not to lose their authority and office to empowered members, the
leaders constantly had to employ discursive and practical strategies to rein-
force their positions. They needed to establish ‘hedges’ that confirmed their
power par excellence in religious issues. A practical hedge could be, for exam-
ple, ministración. This pastoral treatment can be prescribed for a given mem-
ber by his pastor, and it ranges from a confessional conversation to the
expulsion of a demon. In any case, it is designed to make the member submit
to the power of the religious specialist in religious issues. Another strategy for
reinforcing official religious power operated through the combination of the
power of language and the position of the speaker. The religious leaders of
these groups were typically ‘prophets’ (Weber, Bourdieu) with the pretension
of becoming ‘priests’. In the early stage of their organizations in the 1980s, their
religious authority was not as much established by office as it was by habitus:
competence in formal rhetoric, quick-wittedness, and a religious semantic that
is able to build on the social experiences of the middle and upper classes and
transform them into religious identities. This is fragile ground for long-lasting
religious authority. Some of the leaders paved the way with a change in organi-
zational structure. They abolished leadership committees and proclaimed
themselves ‘Apostles’—that is, unquestionable religious authorities. Once the
Apostles were established, they flanked this organizational strategy with a
18 Some of the experts even explicitly refer to their “Reformed Theology.”

homologous discursive one: the Apostles claimed for themselves direct spiri-
tual revelations of truth—either completely independent from the Bible or
with acrobatic scriptural legitimation, but in any case without permitting any
critical dialogue. The more the processes of legitimation become power-
oriented, the more explicit semantics of power surface in these groups. The
previous semantic meaning of ‘power’ in religious discourse thus becomes
identical with its social effect.
A specific social effect is the comparative value this semantic gains with
regard to that of other actors in the religious field, namely the lower-class
Pentecostals. For them, the individualist power claims of the Neopentecostal
Apostles were almost tantamount to challenging God’s own authority. In turn,
Neopentecostal specialists took the lack of ‘power’ in ‘disorderly’, lower-class
Pentecostalism as an indicator of a lack of faith and, in some cases, even of a
propensity for demonic influences. Thus, the religious connotation of divine
power to one’s own position (a paradigmatic operation) is transformed into
the (syntagmatic) operation of establishing social differences and of over-
determining these (again paradigmatically) with religious meaning. With
Bourdieu, this procedure can be labeled as the production of misrecognition
and symbolic violence. The operation comes to bear in the discourse about
social differences.
Most of the 1980s Neopentecostals occupied a social middle-position
between the lower classes and the old oligarchy. Consequently, they had to
legitimize their own position in relation to the poor and, at the same time,
their pretension to upward mobility against the oligarchy. The so-called
Prosperity Gospel presented a feasible discursive strategy. Since economic
prosperity was considered the fruit of divine blessing, the economic positions
and pretensions of the Neopentecostal members were legitimate. With refer-
ence to the poor, this argument had the following consequence: The poor—
including the Pentecostal poor—were poor because they did not open up to
God’s blessings, and therefore they were stuck in the darkness of heresy and
might even have been dominated by a demon of laziness. The oligarchy that
obstructed the upward mobility of the new technocratic (upper-) middle
classes was mostly Catholic. Therefore, it could also be religiously disqualified
as heretic and dominated by demons of greed. Additionally, in socio-ethical
and political discourses for the larger public, Neopentecostals tended to label
the rich as socially irresponsible and to co-opt the lower classes through chari-
table programs.
With regard to the political and military situation, the power-speech in its
‘spiritual warfare’-variant and the authoritarian logic of the ecclesial organiza-
tion was brought to bear by means of a transposition of practical logic from the
198 Schäfer et al.
religious to the political and military fields. The authoritarian pattern of the
Apostle and his disciplinary means of ministración, for instance, could be
observed in the discourse about education in ‘Christian’ magazines distributed
by these groups. The top-down scheme was also transposed into a political
utopia for Guatemala—the ‘restoration’ of state and society in terms of a the-
ocracy (in some cases even associated with the dictator Efraín Rios Montt as
‘King David’). In addition to the transposition of the top-down scheme to poli-
tics, some Neopentecostal specialists offered an entire religious strategy for
political and military praxis. According to the spiritual-warfare-discourse, any
kind of problem could be attributed to the activity of demons. With demons,
there is no discussion; one has to expel them. Many Neopentecostal groups
enacted this discourse even bodily, submitting members to exorcism (‘vomit-
ing demons’) and thus making them learn through their own experience this
praxis of aggressive exclusion. The corresponding logic was widely employed
by Neopentecostal members in order to explain and cure individual problems,
such as drinking problems or psychic disorders. A discursive transposition of
this logic into the political and military field amounted to calling the political
left and the guerrilla demonic and triggered the conclusion that these actors
had to be expelled by exorcist exclusion: military violence, torture, and even
napalm. The victims of these strategies were, not least, the lower classes.
Having exemplified the discursive and practical religious strategiesof the
(upper-) middle class actors in some detail, we will contrast these with a sketch
of the lower-class sample in broad strokes. During the war, large parts of the
lower classes, especially on the countryside, were in an outright desperate situ-
ation. The hope for betterment at the beginning of the revolt had been radically
shattered by the military. A utopian hope for future justice—as advocated by
the Catholic Base Communities—had been almost extinguished by the mur-
der of hundreds of Catholic catechists. What remained were the severe threats
of violence and scarcity. In contrast to the Neopentecostals, much of the pre-
vailing practical logic among the poor Pentecostals could be explained by a
lack of opportunities for action in society. The actors often confirmed that
“there [was] no way out.” No social or political strategy was regarded as helpful
anymore. This cognitive and emotional condition resulted in a stark dichotomy
between ‘church’ and ‘world’. The world presented nothing more than a threat;
the church was the only field of action. The apocalyptic habitus we have ana-
lyzed not only explained what happened, but also provided a means of survival
for the victims of the conditions of war. It generated corresponding discursive
and practical strategies. The church-world-divide established the congrega-
tional group as the social context in which the believers had to pursue a strictly
‘otherworldly’ goal: to prepare for the rapture into heaven. The c onsequences
of this context were—according to a first glance at the non-contextualized

discourse—exactly contrary to the religious praxis of the Neopentecostals.
Divine acceptance was not granted to any believer by simple grace alone.
Instead, the discourse was Arminianist: the believers had to gain their salvation
through religious obedience and a morally impeccable life.19 A look at the
social context reveals that, given the lack of opportunities for social action, the
action required in the church contributed to a practical salvation from the con-
ditions of war. The strictly religious recourse to a transcendent power opened
prospects for social action. First, and albeit at the expense of any intent of
social, political, or military action, these religious actors pursued a strategy of
effectively avoiding conflict and military persecution.20 Second, the congrega-
tion served as the domain of a certain amount of human security and commu-
nitarian solidarity, and thus as a means of survival. Third, the religious task to
be fulfilled every day—preparation for the rapture by living an impeccable
life—represented a field of action that contributed to maintaining self esteem,
even in a situation that did not allow social or political action anymore. Thus, a
completely ‘otherworldly’ religious discourse was tantamount to a socio-religious
strategy of survival under hostile conditions.
Finally, we would like to add some brief observations on the practical logics
of religious competition (see Figure 8.5). It is surely due to the strong social
dynamics of a counterinsurgency war that the competitive dynamics in the
religious field were strongly influenced by political options and constraints.
The discourses of religious legitimation and de-legitimation were not confined
to strictly religious semantics. The position of the Catholic Church in the reli-
gious field, for instance, had been put at risk by a theologically based ethical
position-taking (Bourdieu: prise de position). Not only the Catholic Base
Communities, but also parts of the Episcopal Conference, pronounced them-
selves as against military violence and for justice. This measure induced a break
with large numbers of upper-middle-class members, who reacted partly by
converting to Neopentecostal churches. Thus, a change of ethical discourse in
the hegemonic position of the religious field amounted to leaving space for the
rise of a new movement. The Neopentecostals had no base in complex organi-
zational structures similar to those of the Catholic Church, which g uaranteed
19 The power of the Holy Spirit is normally linked to the official consecration for religious
office, mostly in the context of education at a biblical seminary.
20 This strategy has been fiercely debated among different religious and social groups in
Guatemala. For many exponents of the Base Community movement or of the political
resistance who put their lives at high risk during the war, this strategy is simple cowardice.
Nevertheless, we cannot discuss these normative issues here.
200 Schäfer et al.
the continuity and strength of Catholicism. In contrast, Neopentecostals com-

bined a discourse—which was attractive for a pretentious (upper-) middle
class in a situation of crisis—with financial resources and social capital that
facilitated large-scale media access and the cooptation of politicians. They had
the means to pursue a strategy of discursive generalization of their practical
logic. In the long run, until the present day, the Neopentecostal ‘dispositif’
(Foucault)—the promise of divine power and prosperity, manager-like leaders,
the practice of consulting members on techniques of economic success, and
the financial as well as the media power of the organizations—has ‘neopente-
costalized’ many of the Pentecostal churches and thus redefined at least the
nomos of Pentecostalism.
A final observation with regard to the religious field in the 1980s may serve
to demonstrate an effect of religious discourse on the power relations in the
field, mediated by the dynamics of religious demand and supply (Bourdieu
1991). If the Catholic Church, during the war, came under pressure from
Pentecostal competition, this was not least due to the Catholic habitus of insti-
tutional sanctity (hierarchy), social justice (Base Communities), and magic
(popular tradition). None of these religious logics was as conclusive in explain-
ing the conditions of war to the repressed classes as was the Pentecostal apoca-
lypticism; hence the high credibility of classical Pentecostalism during the war.
Over the last 20 years, however, the Catholic Church has been able to reaffirm
its position in the religious field, and Pentecostalism in general has grown
more diverse (Schäfer 2009c; Schäfer, Tovar Simoncic, and Reu 2013), swiftly
adapting its practical logic to changes in the social experiences and religious
demands of different social classes.
Conclusion
In these two chapters, we have endeavored to sketch HabitusAnalysis and to

identify common fields of research with critical discourse analysis. We hope
that we have plausibly marked some terrain with the concept of practical logic.
The dynamics operating in discourses and practices relate actors and struc-
tures, ‘words’ and ‘wars’, creating praxis. This is also true for religious praxis, on
which the present volume focuses. Our minimal definition of religion identi-
fies only one small difference between religious praxis and any other praxis:
the recourse of religious actors to a transcendent entity. In this sense, and
remembering the opening statement of the first chapter, quoted from
Juergensmeyer, religious ‘words’ definitely respond to the ‘wars’ of society,
as does any other discourse. But religious discourse does this in a decidedly
on-societal way, by recourse to transcendent powers. Religious ‘words’ take

n
special effect in this world, since they are not of this world.
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chapter 9
Religion and Science in Transformation: On

Discourse Communities, the Double-Bind of
Discourse Research, and Theoretical Controversies
Kocku von Stuckrad
Unpacking Religion in Secular Environments
The narrative of secularization is a strange thing. On the one hand, scholars

have argued that ‘modernization’ in ‘the West’ has led to a serious decline in
religious convictions and practices; on the other hand, religion has contin-
ued to be an important element of public and private life in Europe and
North America. A closer look at these dynamics reveals that the period
between—roughly—1870 and 1950 was instrumental in creating new forms
of religious understandings and practices, some of them outside of the more
traditional institutionalized religions. These new understandings of religion
fostered the emergence of a broad variety of religious communities (now
often called ‘spiritual’ or ‘metaphysical’) in the second half of the twentieth
century. A key element of the underlying dynamic is the fact that twentieth-
century religious and spiritual convictions in Europe and North America
make explicit use of scientific and secular interpretations of the world.
Rather than constructing a clear distinction between religion and science,
these understandings of religion incorporate scientific language into their
own worldviews.
If we want to analyze the complex processes that have given religion a new
place in contemporary European and North American culture, it is particularly
helpful to apply the instruments of historical discourse analysis and of sociol-
ogy of knowledge approaches to discourse (skad).1 From this perspective,
discourses are systematically organized forms of knowledge in a given com-
munity that are established, stabilized, and legitimized by communicative
practices. These structures provide systems of meaning and regulate what is
regarded as valid knowledge, be it explicit or tacit. Discourses are intrinsically
1 On my understanding of discursive study of religion, see von Stuckrad 2013 (with further
references); see also Neubert 2014. On skad, see Keller 2011. The discursive link between
religion and science is also explored in von Stuckrad and Vollmer 2016 (forthcoming).

204 von Stuckrad
linked to dispositives that provide the communicative ‘infrastructure’ in which

attributions of meaning become operative.
It is the reorganization of discourse strands that has given religion a new
place in European and North American culture since the nineteenth century.
To unpack this discursive constellation and to reconstruct its genealogy, it is
necessary to have a close look at the ingredients of discursive knots and the
re-entanglement of these ingredients, or discourse strands, in changing his-
torical settings. This is a creative process that explores new ways of ordering
historical sources. Such an unpacking and reorganization of data presents a
new outline of what happened to religion in the twentieth century, very similar
in its strategy to Michel Foucault’s program of deconstructing and reconstruct-
ing analytical frameworks:
The […] purpose of such a description of the facts of discourse is that by

freeing them of all the groupings that purport to be natural, immediate,
universal unities, one is able to describe other unities, but this time by
means of a group of controlled decisions. Providing one defines the con-
ditions clearly, it might be legitimate to constitute, on the basis of cor-
rectly described relations, discursive groups that are not arbitrary, and yet
remain invisible. […] [I]t is not therefore an interpretation of the facts of
the statement that might reveal [the relations], but the analysis of their
coexistence, their succession, their mutual functioning, their reciprocal
determination, and their independent or correlative transformations.
foucault 2010 [1972]: 29
Discourses on religion that developed within secular frameworks are closely

tied to ‘scientific’ ways of interpreting the world. When we disentangle and
reconstruct discursive knots that have crystallized around the concepts of ‘reli-
gion’ and ‘science’, we can suggest new ‘unities’, again very much in line with
Foucault’s understanding:
I […] will do no more than this: of course, I shall take as my starting-point

whatever unities are already given (such as psychopathology, medicine,
or political economy); but I shall make use of them just long enough to
ask myself what unities they form; by what right they can claim a field
that specifies them in space and a continuity that individualizes them in
time; according to what laws they are formed; against the background of
which discursive events they stand out; and whether they are not, in their
accepted and quasi-institutional individuality, ultimately the surface
effect of more firmly grounded unities. I shall accept the groupings that
Religion and Science in Transformation 205
history suggests only to subject them at once to interrogation; to break

them up and then to see whether they can be legitimately reformed; or
whether other groupings should be made; to replace them in a more gen-
eral space which, while dissipating their apparent familiarity, makes it
possible to construct a theory of them.
ibid.: 26
In a recent book I have suggested such a new grouping, based on unities that
are configured in discursive processes (von Stuckrad 2014). The result is an
interpretation of twentieth-century cultural history that demonstrates the far-
reaching entanglements between the work of academics—both in the human-
ities and in the natural sciences—and religious convictions and practices.
What I call the ‘scientification of religion’ captures a similar process of interac-
tion to that which underlies the excellent new study by Egil Asprem (2014).
Surprisingly, however, Asprem presents this research as counter-evidence to
Max Weber’s interpretation of disenchantment (see particularly Asprem 2014:
47–49), which in my view is a one-sided presentation of Weber’s approach (cf.
Kippenberg 2015). Weber was much more of a relativist than is often assumed,
and his idea that religion should be studied as meaning-making in situational
settings was for him also true when it came to academic meaning-making (see
von Stuckrad 2010a: 197–198). Or, as Reiner Keller puts it: “Max Weber’s The
Protestant Ethic, a work of discourse analysis avant la lettre, traced the impor-
tance of religious knowledge back to the dynamics of the development of capi-
talism. Sociology, as conceived by Weber, is from its onset a kind of
‘Kulturwissenschaft’, since social sense making or interpretations of the world
are a central subject of analysis” (2011: 44).
In Max Weber’s view, modernization implies the reorganization of gesell-
schaftliche Mächte, i.e., domains and powers that are operative in societies,
such as science, law, religion, and economy. These domains can easily be
understood as discursive fields, driven by specific regulations and rules. When
it comes to contemporary discursive constellations in Europe and North
America, where secular science is a major element in the legitimization of
knowledge, the relations between the discursive fields of science and religion
are particularly relevant. Indeed, what we see is a blending of domains rather
than a simple differentiation and polemical disjunction of knowledge systems.
The entanglement of discourse strands related to science and religion has pro-
duced a whole new field of religious convictions and practices in the twentieth
century.
My intention in this chapter is twofold. By using selected examples from my
study of the scientification of religion, I want to demonstrate how a discursive
206 von Stuckrad
approach to religion can foster new insights into the dynamics of cultural pro-
cesses. Subsequently, I want to use these concrete examples to reflect on some
of the major controversies in the field of discourse research in general, includ-
ing a number of critical issues raised against historical discourse analysis and
sociology of knowledge approaches to discourse.
Rearranging the Discourse on the Living Power of the Cosmos
Among the new disciplines that established themselves in the nineteenth

century are chemistry and physics. In a process of differentiation, these dis-
ciplines had been increasingly distinguished from alchemy, magic, and other
‘occult sciences’. However, similarly to the differentiation of astrology and
astronomy (on which, see von Stuckrad 2014: 23–55), these processes did not
lead to a clear separation between domains. What we see instead is a chang-
ing description of what ‘real science’ and ‘pseudo-science’ means. Roger
Cooter noted that the “eighteenth century had understood quackery as bla-
tant fraud (especially in relation to medicine) but lacked a developed con-
cept of ‘pseudo-science’. For the stuff of belief (religion) and the stuff of
experiment and analysis (science or natural philosophy) had not yet under-
gone their rhetorical separation and ranking” (2003: 683). Cooter draws the
only feasible conclusion: “From the history of phrenology and other such
pseudo-sciences, it is clear there is more to be lost than gained historically by
seeking retrospectively to draw sharp distinctions between the ‘real’ and the
‘pseudo’ in science” (2003: 684). Therefore, it is better to avoid the terms
‘alchemy’ and ‘chemistry’ as generic analytical concepts and rather look at
their respective configurations in scientific, philosophical, and religious dis-
course. If we disentangle the discourse strands that constitute alchemy2
(or, in the old parlance, chymistry), and do the same with chemistry, we
will be able to see the transformations of meaning that have taken place
since the eighteenth century. We can then also identify the points at which
certain elements of this discourse have adopted new meanings as well as the
forms in which these meanings have perhaps been continued in contempo-
rary science (for a more detailed version of the following analysis, see von
Stuckrad 2014: 61–75).
2 With small capital letters I indicate the discourse on something, rather than the thing itself;
in other words, and using Foucault’s terminology, small capital letters indicate unities or
groupings.
From Alchemy to Chemistry

For the emergence of today’s order of knowledge in physics and chemistry, the
turn of the nineteenth century was an important break. One of the major shifts
in the evaluation of alchemy was the move away from its understanding of the
nature of matter. What does that mean? While alchemy had been linked to the
idea that the elements can be reduced to a proto hyle—prima materia or pri-
mary matter—now chemists held that the smallest particles were atoms
(Keller 1983: 9–10). John Dalton set the new tone in his New System of Chemical
Philosophy, which was published in two parts between 1808 and 1810.
Interestingly enough, the work originated from his “Lectures on Natural
Philosophy” at the Royal Institution in London. “The author has ever since
been occasionally urged by several of his philosophical friends to lose no time
in communicating the results of his enquiries to the public, alledging [sic], that
the interests in science, and his own reputation, might suffer by delay”
(1808/1810: v–vi). Dalton still referred to his scholarship as “natural philosophy,”
and throughout his book he spoke of “philosophical chemists,” “philosophers,”
“experimental philosophy” (as in the title), etc. At the same time, it is charac-
teristic that the terms ‘alchemy’, ‘chymistry’, ‘transmutation’, ‘god’, and related
concepts were completely absent in Dalton’s work. The new configurations
were ‘atom’, ‘elementary bodies’, and the material basis of ‘chemical science’
(see, e.g., page 474). Not surprisingly, then, Dalton dedicated the second part to
Humphry Davy and William Henry, “as a testimony to their distinguished merit
in the promotion of chemical science.” Dalton also introduced the genre of
chemical tables: “Nothing of the kind has been published to my knowledge;
yet, such tables appear to me so necessary to the practice of chemical enqui-
ries, that I have wondered how the science could be so long cultivated without
them” (496). This new aesthetic device changed the way the ‘systematization’
of chemical knowledge was (and still is) legitimized. As with tables of histori-
cal epochs (on which, see Steiner 2008), this dispositive stabilized the new
order of knowledge.
The new ideas about the nature of matter and the new vocabulary that
found expression in works such as Dalton’s—with a complete absence of terms
that had been related to alchemy, while retaining the link between science and
philosophy—paved the way for the new understanding of alchemy as the
‘Other’ of scientific chemistry. It was the same period that saw the general
introduction of the English terms ‘pseudo-science’ and ‘pseudo-scientist’. After
William Whewell had coined the term scientist in 1840 (see Ross 1962; Yeo
1993), the term pseudo-science gained popularity and was used to critique, for
example, Samuel Hahnemann’s homeopathy or Gustave Le Bon’s mass psy-
chology (Hagner 2008: 24). But most scientists, like Dalton, simply neglected
208 von Stuckrad
the older vocabulary, and it was the job of nineteenth-century historians to

make the shift visible in explicit wordings. When Heinrich Wilhelm Schaefer in
1887 defined alchemy as “the art of transforming ignoble metal into silver and
particularly into gold” (1887: 1), he expressed the now-common understanding
of alchemy as something distinct from modern science. For these authors,
alchemy only continues to be interesting from an historical point of view—for
those who want to understand the psychology of human folly and the achieve-
ments of contemporary science.
Alchemy is of rich interest to the scholar in various regards. We may want

to study it from a psychological perspective, which offers particularly
good insight into how, based on a few facts, which were observed inac-
curately, using a few unclear words behind which one suspected mysteri-
ous content that people thought they usefully interpreted, there
developed a huge network of false doctrines; these doctrines occupied
the human mind for over a millennium and, in combination with mysti-
cal ideas, held it captive entirely. We may also discuss, from a practical
point of view, the value of the chemical processes that alchemy applied
to reach its goal; in doing so—by reviewing, from the perspective of sci-
entific chemistry, the importance of the existing theoretical ideas and the
results that alchemists achieved as a preliminary stage of contemporary
chemistry—we also contribute to the history of this science itself.
schaefer 1887: 1; author’s translation
In Schaefer’s account, representative of the understanding of alchemy in his

time, this discipline is historically distinct from science, although perhaps in
part a forerunner of modern scientific chemistry and physics. Schaefer is at
pains to identify the Egyptian-Greek Hermes Trismegistus as the imagined ori-
gin of alchemical thinking (1887: 2–12), which also links alchemy to its supersti-
tious sister, astrology (11). Terms that belong to the groupings of religion,
mysticism, and metaphysics—combined with discourse strands such as
‘fraud’, ‘trick’, ‘superstition’, or ‘credulity’—legitimized the ‘modern’ contempt
of alchemy as a counter-concept of science.
Yet, although Schaefer noted that serious alchemical practice could no lon-
ger be observed in the nineteenth century (1887: 33–34), he reminded his read-
ers of one structural parallel between modern chemistry and alchemical
endeavors—the chemical search for the smallest atoms offered the possibility
of recombining elementary particles, thus creating new metals. As an example
of this ‘transmutational quest’, he referred to the British physicist Norman
Lockyer, who, eight years earlier, had thought that he had transformed copper
into calcium and nickel into cobalt through the use of electricity (Schaefer
1887: 34). Sir Norman Lockyer’s spectroscopic studies of stars and his hypoth-
esis that the chemical elements were compound bodies, which he explained in
a lecture on 12 December 1878 at the Royal Society, experienced a mixed recep-
tion and were considered very controversial; it is characteristic of the discur-
sive configuration of the day that Lockyer was ridiculed as an “alchemist” by
the popular press and by some of his colleagues (Brock 1985: 189). However,
Lockyer’s studies are also an indication that the neat distinction between
alchemy and chemistry was not always easy to maintain in the light of emerg-
ing theories of the nature of matter.
The discursive reconfiguration that has taken place since the eighteenth
century can also be framed as a conflict between the Aristotelian philosophical
tradition and Greek atomic, corpuscular philosophy. This new development
dramatically challenged the Aristotelian interpretation of material change
that was common until the seventeenth century, which explained alterations
of chemical properties or substances as the addition or subtraction of ‘forms’.
As mentioned above, underlying these processes was a speculative substrate of
matter, called the proto hyle or prima materia, that remained unchanged
throughout the process. Linked to the forms or qualities of wet, dry, hot, and
cold, the proto hyle produced the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water,
which in turn could be mixed to generate the material substances the chemists
examined. Over against this Aristotelian theory, Greek corpuscular philosophy
gained influence in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, speculating
about atoms being the smallest units of material substances, which may or
may not be understood as unsplittable. However, as William H. Brock aptly
remarks,
although enlivened by Boyle, Newton and their successors with gravita-

tional force, chemical affinity and electrical properties, the earlier cor-
puscular philosophy or atomic theory was of little use to chemists until it
was married to the modern doctrine of elements by John Dalton at the
beginning of the nineteenth century. […] Dalton abandoned at a stroke
the age-old belief of philosophers in the simplicity of matter—that there
was a unique, homogeneous primary matter.
1985: vii–viii
For many, however, giving up the idea of a simple and unifying principle that
underlies the processes of nature was too high a price to pay for scientific prog-
ress (cf. also the detailed discussion in Asprem 2014). One of these was William
Prout (1785–1850), who in 1816 put forward his hypothesis that all of the elements
210 von Stuckrad
and their constituent atoms were in fact compounds of one basic homoge-
neous material. He coined the term protyle for this speculative basis, which he
then identified with hydrogen, the lightest known element. Prout became
known for a second hypothesis as well—namely, the idea that if we accept the
expression of the atomic weight of hydrogen as a unity, the relative atomic
weights of all of the known elements are whole numbers. Consequently, hydro-
gen came to be regarded as the primary matter from which all of the elements
were composed. What was subsequently discussed as “Prout’s hypothesis” had
an influence on nineteenth- and twentieth-century theories of matter that
should not be underestimated. Brock points out that “[a]s a tantalizing and
attractive simplifying view of matter it was to be a continuous source of inspi-
ration to chemists and physicists until the work of F W Aston on isotopes in the
1920s” (1985: viii).
It is important for my analysis to note that the protyle also became a favorite
topic in theosophical and occultist discourse at the end of the nineteenth cen-
tury. For instance, in 1893 Wynn W. Westcott, a founding member of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and a noted authority on alchemy, pub-
lished a pamphlet under his Golden Dawn pseudonym “Sapere Aude” on The
Science of Alchymy: Spiritual and Material. He argued that alchemy “must be
regarded as a science uniting ancient chemistry with a religious basis” (1893: 4).
But while he, like Heinrich Wilhelm Schaefer and others, drew the historical
line from ancient and medieval alchemy to modern chemistry (1893: 5), he did
not support the triumphant self-esteem of modern chemists. “No modern sci-
ence has shown more intolerance towards its ancestors than the chemistry of
our era has shown to the discoveries of those Egyptian, Arabian and Mediæval
sages who were the founders of chemistry in the dim and distant past” (1893: 8).
In his attempt to reconcile alchemy with the most modern chemical findings,
Westcott referred to Prout’s protyle as evidence of the unified quality of matter,
or the prima materia of the alchemists. He found support from the leading
chemist Sir William Crookes. History books of modern science usually do not
mention that Crookes was also a member of the Theosophical Society and
secretly a Golden Dawn initiate (see Morrisson 2007: 39–40).
By the end of the nineteenth century, Theosophists and scientists—partly
in collaboration—had developed a new entanglement of discourse strands.
Indeed, as Morrisson points out:
When scientists such as Crookes and Lodge, and Theosophists such as

Besant and Leadbeater, melded physics with spiritual and psychic forces
via theories of the ether (and the additional particles that Theosophy
added to the equation), they were lending scientific credibility to spiritual
ideas. Paradoxically, in their critique of scientific materialism, they

asserted a mechanical theory of spirituality. Theosophy thus required a
form of vitalism to counterbalance the mechanistic tendencies of its
physics.
2007: 83
The Formation of vitalism

Let us broaden the perspective a little bit and, as Morrisson suggests, include
vitalism in our analysis. What I call vitalism here is a grouping of discourse
strands that are linked to the historical tradition of vitalism but are not limited
to it. The form of scientific and philosophical vitalism that emerged at the
beginning of the twentieth century took on features from various new disci-
plines. Hans Driesch (1867–1941), the German biologist noted for his early
experimental work in embryology and for being one of the first to perform the
cloning of an animal in the 1880s, is certainly the best-known representative of
what he himself called neo-vitalism (Driesch 1922: 167). In various publica-
tions, he positioned himself against materialistic philosophies of science, par-
ticularly Darwinism, and he made explicit a major component of the formation
of new discourses in the twentieth century—the emergence of psychology as
an integrating factor between religion, philosophy, and science. “As is well
known,” writes Driesch, “the problem of vitalism is expanded considerably
when we include in it the question of the relations between the ‘inner life’
[‘Seelenleben’] and nature.” Against this background, Driesch is surprised that
psychologists do not really engage the issue: “almost nobody has seen the close
relation between the body/mind problem and vitalism as such in its actual
sharpness; indeed, it is strange that not even physiologists such as Pflüger and
Goltz have seen the close link that is operative here” (1922: 157; author’s
translation).
It is through psychology that Driesch also endorsed the work of another
famous vitalist—Henri Bergson (1859–1941; see Burwick and Douglass 2010).
Both scholars fought against mechanistic and ‘finalistic’ philosophies of sci-
ence, even though their conclusions differed in some ways (Driesch 1922: 178–
180). Driesch was convinced of the relevance of occultism and psychology to
the emergence of a new understanding of science, and he used the label ‘para’
for these sciences without the pejorative charge that this label assumed in
other contexts.
Now at last a field seems to become “science” on which as yet only casu-
istic statements have been made, more guessing than knowing: the field
of parapsychology and paraphysics, i.e., those fields that are unfortunately
212 von Stuckrad
still called “occultism” [Okkultismus], even though, it seems to me, not

much is still “occult” [verborgen] here. […] We state it frankly: Paraphysics
is our hope when it comes to biology, just as parapsychology [Parapsychik]
is our hope when it comes to psychology. Together, however, they express
our hope when it comes to a well-founded metaphysics and “worldview”
[“Weltanschauung”].
1922: 208–209, emphasis original
Statements like these make it clear how closely this discourse is linked to the
grouping of monism (on which, see von Stuckrad 2014: 76–93). We can see the
link between these discourses in what Monika Fick calls the “sensualization of
the spiritual” (Versinnlichung des Geistigen) and the “spiritualization of the
physical” (Beseelung des Physischen); at the end of her study of fin de siècle lit-
erature, in which Gustav Theodor Fechner and other Romantic authors were
positively received and linked to spiritualism as a “biology of the beyond,” she
draws the conclusion that we can even speak of (literary) “modernity as a
monistic movement” (Fick 1993: 354–365). It is noteworthy in this regard that
Fechner had decisive influence on Sigmund Freud in particular, and on psycho-
analysis in general. “A large part of the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis
would hardly have come into being without the speculations of the man whom
Freud called the great Fechner” (Ellenberger 1970: 218). In a parallel dynamic,
vitalism has powerfully inflected the literary sensibility of the last two
centuries, and these cultural effects were empowered by the residual
prestige vitalism enjoyed from its discursive apprenticeship in the scien-
tific academy. The transition of vitalism from science, to a scientific ideol-
ogy, to a social ideology shows this complex historical dynamic in action.
clarke 1996: 28
William Prout contributed to this discourse as well, since he argued that living
systems also contained ‘vital principles’. With this thesis, Prout was part of a
heated debate among chemists of his generation (Brock 1985: 70–80), long
before occultists and Theosophists jumped on the bandwagon and spiritual-
ized the ‘life force’ and at the same time ‘scientificized’ spirituality.
New Meanings in Academic Writings

Therefore, if we want to understand the ambivalent role that alchemical dis-
course played in the twentieth century—wavering between rejection and
fascination—we will have to include psychology in our analysis. The intellectual
relationship between the physicist Wolfgang Pauli and the psychologist Carl
Gustav Jung is perhaps the clearest example of the discursive repositioning of

alchemy between psychology and modern science. This conversation had a lot
of impact: “Jung ultimately set the terms of a psychological interpretation of
alchemy for much of the rest of the century” (Morrisson 2007: 190). Jung was
interested in alchemy early on, after he had encountered this field through the
works of Herbert Silberer in 1914; but his fascination with alchemy fully blos-
somed only later, at the end of the 1920s, when he started to link mandala sym-
bolism to alchemical motives (Ellenberger 1970: 719–723; Gieser 2005: 198–200;
Miller 2009: 47–50; see Jung 1980: 118–260). Jung presented a lecture at the
Eranos meeting, published in the Eranos-Jahrbuch 1936 under the title “Die
Erlösungsvorstellungen in der Alchemie” (“The Redemption Motives in
Alchemy”). This lecture was integrated, although in a completely new form, as
one part of Jung’s monograph Psychologie und Alchemie (“Psychology and
Alchemy”), which was first published in 1944, but of which a second edition
was already necessary in 1952, much to the astonishment of the author (see his
1951 preface to the second edition in Jung 1980).
Jung was interested in alchemy particularly because he was struck by the
apparent similarity between alchemical symbolism and the dreams of modern
individuals. In a fairly eclectic way, Jung seriously immersed himself in the his-
tory of alchemical literature and ideas, which led him to the construction of
alchemy as a tradition mainly interested in psychological and spiritual dimen-
sions (Jung 1980: 282–331). According to Jung, alchemical symbolism is con-
cerned with an evolutionary process striving to attain its highest form. The
‘maturing’ of the metals can be compared to the ‘individuation’ of the human
psyche in its passing through various stages of purification. The Philosopher’s
Stone was essentially the psychological process of individuation (McLynn
1996: 428–432); the ‘Great Work’ (opus) is the combination of conflicting forces
into a new, unified harmony. “The basis of the opus is the materia prima, which
is one of the most famous secrets of alchemy,” Jung noted (1980: 364, emphasis
added; author’s translation; see the entire chapter on prima materia in Jung
1980: 364–394). Jung described the prima materia as a universal category char-
acterized by ubiquity: “we can have it always and everywhere; i.e. the projec-
tion can take place all the time and everywhere” (Jung 1980: 371). This
speculation about a primary matter underlying physical and spiritual pro-
cesses is a reconfiguration of discourse strands that belong to the groupings of
science and psychology. The “procedure of disintegration and reconstruc-
tion has its equivalent in purely experimental science and also in therapeutic
work” (Gieser 2005: 200). And this is where Wolfgang Pauli enters the stage.
Pauli encountered alchemy as powerful symbolism in his own dreams, and
he discussed the theory of alchemy and its implications with Jung in his own
214 von Stuckrad
analysis and also in extended conversations that we know of from their letters
(see the very good analysis in Gieser 2005: 198–211). Pauli thought that there
must be a ‘fine structure’ (a recurring motif in his dreams) and a ‘neutral lan-
guage’ underlying the principles of both physics and psychology (see also
Jung’s approval of the term “neutral language” in Jung and Pauli 1952: 99). In his
essay “Science and Western Thought,” Pauli referred to Kepler as an antagonist
of Fludd, to Goethe’s “Faust” as an antagonist of Newton, as well as to Jung and
the traditions of Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism (Pauli 1994: 146). He asked
whether modern science would now “be able to realise, on a higher plane,
alchemy’s old dream of a psycho-physical unity, by the creation of a unified
conceptual foundation for the scientific comprehension of the physical as well
as the psychical” (ibid.). In this question, which Pauli regarded as “vital for con-
temporary science” (ibid.), the discursive combination of ‘psyche/psychology’,
‘physics’, ‘science’, and ‘alchemy’ materializes in a nutshell. What is more,
Pauli’s unified language is nothing other than the ‘language of nature’ that is
known from European intellectual history (Gieser 2005: 207, with reference to
Pauli’s letter to Fierz, dated 21 August 1948). Suzanne Gieser’s conclusion is to
the point:
Pauli’s vision is a unified worldview, in which the gap between psychologi-

cal and physical worlds is suspended, just as the gap between the chemi-
cal and the physical has been suspended at the atomic level. The idea is
that the closer one gets to the core of things, to their intrinsic structure,
the more the differences perceived on the everyday macro level are sus-
pended. Here we recognize again the positivistic wish to create a unitary
science. The important difference is, however, that Pauli did not want to
see a reductionist model, in which everything can be reduced to an exist-
ing science, like logic or physics. He sought rather a wholly new scientific
approach which does not disregard the unique character of the individual
sciences, but which attempts to find certain common denominators—a
deep level based on the belief in certain universal structural elements
which reveal themselves in all areas of experience.
2005: 208
It is no surprise that this reconfiguration of psychology and physics in a quest

to discover the universal patterns of the cosmos was also highly interesting to
occultist or magical discourse communities. An influential example is Israel
Regardie (1907–1985), who had a solid knowledge of Jungian psychoanalysis,
which he combined with his immersion in Golden Dawn and Enochian magic
traditions. In 1937, Regardie published The Philosopher’s Stone: A Modern
Comparative Approach to Alchemy from the Psychological and Magical Points of

View, followed by a major publication entitled The Middle Pillar: The Balance
between Mind and Magic (1938). The author claimed that there is an intrinsic
relation between ritual magic and psychology, which finds expression in the
alchemical work and the Philosopher’s Stone, “a symbol for spiritual illumina-
tion and expanded consciousness” (quoted in Morrisson 2007: 191). He even
recommended that psychotherapists should use the Lesser Banishing Ritual
and the Middle Pillar exercise from the Golden Dawn in their sessions
(Morrisson 2007: 191).
This interpretation is not far from Mircea Eliade’s construction of alchemy.
Only a few years after Regardie, Eliade published The Forge and the Crucible
(the French original appeared in 1956). In his foreword, he leaves no doubt
about his real interests:
Wherever possible, the historic-cultural context of the various metallur-

gical complexes has been taken into account; but my main concern has
been to pierce through to the mental world which lies behind them.
Mineral substances shared in the sacredness attaching to the Earth-
Mother. […] To collaborate in the work of Nature, to help her to produce
at an ever-increasing tempo, to change the modalities of matter—here,
in our view, lies one of the key sources of alchemical ideology. […] what
the smelter, smith and alchemist have in common is that all three lay
claim to a particular magico-religious experience in their relations with
matter; this experience is their monopoly and its secret is transmitted
through the initiatory rites of their trades. All three work on a Matter
which they hold to be at once alive and sacred, and in their labours
they pursue the transformation of matter, its perfection and its
transmutation.
eliade 1978: 8–9
All of the ingredients of the new discursive constellation are clearly visible
here; Eliade, the professor of religion, lends authority to the combination of
religion, science, nature, magic, experience, mother earth,
vitalism, transmutation, and alchemy.
The discursive constellation that I have described in this analysis is by no
means a marginal, ‘esoteric’ movement. It has had a decisive impact on holistic
understandings of nature and the cosmos as well as on practices and convic-
tions in the field of nature-based spiritualities and the emerging discourse on
nature, environmentalism, and ‘Gaian’ religious practice at the end of the twen-
tieth century (on “dark green religion” as a global phenomenon, see Taylor 2010).
216 von Stuckrad
Discourse analysis is a very useful instrument if we want to understand and

explain the emergence of contemporary views about nature, religion, spiritual-
ity, and science.
Discursive Study of Religion: Controversies and Clarifications
Addressing the transformation of the discursive field of religion and science is

an example of historical discourse analysis. This example shows that the analy-
sis of terms and texts—in other words, linguistic dimensions—is also an
important part of historical analysis and genealogical approaches. Hence,
I agree with Titus Hjelm and Teemu Taira (Chapters 1 and 6 in this volume,
respectively) that the distinction between linguistic and historical approaches
to discourse should not be overestimated; when I make this distinction, I am
referring to the different focus of those approaches, and I argue that a linguistic
focus easily overlooks the practices, functions, non-linguistic elements, and
dispositives of a discourse and thus resembles a content analysis more than a
discourse analysis (on the difference between those two methods, see Wedl,
Herschinger, and Gasteiger 2014).
Within the larger framework of discourse research, many forms of discourse
analysis are possible; the historical reconstruction of the genealogy of a certain
discursive ensemble is only one of them. Different forms of discourse analysis
may need to apply different methods and discursive practices, but what they
have in common is the fact that ‘doing’ a discourse analysis is always an attri-
bution of meaning that is itself part of the discourse (Wrana 2014; see also
Moberg 2013: 12, referring to Taylor 2001: 39). Hence, constructing a discourse is
a discursive practice that needs to be reflected upon from a meta-discursive
perspective (von Stuckrad 2010b: 157–158). The endless regress this self-
reflection entails is an unavoidable feature of all constructivist approaches,
including discourse analyses (Knorr-Cetina 1989: 93). This brings me to a few
methodological issues that are intrinsic to discourse research in general and
have been raised with regard to a discursive study of religion in particular.
The Ontology of Discourses and the Double-Bind of

Discourse Research
One recurrent topic in methodological discussions is the question of how ‘real’
discourses are. Was there ‘really’ a discourse on alchemy that ‘influenced’ what
people today think about the world? To answer this question, it is worthwhile to
go back to Max Weber, who famously noted, “It is not the ‘factual’ associations of
the ‘things’ [die ‘sachlichen’ Zusammenhänge der ‘Dinge’] but the intellectual
associations of the problems [die gedanklichen Zusammenhänge der Probleme]

that underlie the fields of scientific research” (“Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissen-
schaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis” [1904], quoted from Weber 1982:
166; author’s translation). I hope this helps to clarify a problem that Frank
Neubert has identified in my work on the discursive study of religion: “It seems
that religion is still thought of as a pre-discursively ‘existing’ phenomenon”
(Neubert 2014: 269; author’s translation). Christian Funke and Lisa Züfle argue
similarly when they claim that my approach simply shifts the definitional
problems from the term ‘religion’ to the term ‘discourse’; “discourse theory,”
according to these authors, “cannot substitute the concept of religion. To ana-
lyze what is specifically religious in discourses, this has to be defined in a theo-
retically sound way first” (Funke and Züfle 2009: 36; author’s translation). Over
against such an understanding, I want to point out that “what is specifically
religious in discourses” is not dependent on a definition of religion, but rather
on the discursive constellation that uses the term ‘religion’ and the concepts
entangled with it. Rather than defining what religion ‘is’, my approach takes as
its point of departure what people think religion is, which can be determined
through an analysis of its discursive use (see Taira, Årsheim, and Horii in this
volume, each of whom address this question in diverse contexts). This does
not mean that ‘religion’ is presumed to ‘exist’ in a pre-discursive way, as Neubert
writes; rather, it assumes that if people use the term ‘religion’, and if discourses
on religion are re-entangled in changing historical constellations, these dis-
courses ‘exist’ because people are basing their interpretations of the world on
them. It is the same mechanism described in the Thomas Theorem: Situations
defined as real are real in their consequences (see Merton 1995).
There are no objectively given ‘discourses’ just waiting to be studied by his-
torians or social scientists; the description of a discourse, or Foucault’s project
of suggesting new ‘groupings’ of ‘things’, is a constructive process that follows
the interests of the researcher. The selection of data and the building of a cor-
pus are part of the researcher’s constructive work. It would be too simple to say
that ‘facts’ are ‘fabricated’ in historiographical work, but the transition from
‘traces’ to ‘sources’ and ‘data’—and thus the generation of facts as facts—is by
no means an objective and straightforward process (von Stuckrad 2010a: 195–
196). In many ways, the researcher is both the product of the discourse she or
he describes and the producer of it through the attribution of meaning to
things; we can call this the ‘double-bind of discourse research’ (on “Western
esotericism” and “Pagan studies” as examples of such a double-bind, see von
Stuckrad 2014: 152–158).
We will have to take the double-bind of scholarly work seriously. This also
means, as George Ioannides and Jay Johnston point out in their contributions to
218 von Stuckrad
this volume, that we have to take seriously the impact of factors (such as ‘mate-
riality’) that are outside of the discourse as well as systems of knowledge that run
against the commonly accepted forms of knowledge. The intriguing question,
then, is whether we want to appreciate the plurality of (equally valid) systems of
knowledge, or whether we want to move a step further and integrate those alter-
native systems of knowledge into the ‘business’ of scholarly argument. I have
been confronted with this question in my own research repeatedly and for a long
time (see, for instance, von Stuckrad 2007). My own experiences with astrologi-
cal hermeneutics and knowledge systems, as well as my experience with nature-
based religious systems such as shamanism, have given me a deep respect for
systems of knowledge that are ultimately incommensurable with the ‘genre’ of
academic reasoning. As a teacher, I encourage my students to engage in these
systems explicitly in order to broaden their horizons and to relativize their posi-
tions as scholars. As a researcher, I critically address the fact that these systems
are considered ‘discarded knowledge’ in academic contexts (and in other con-
texts as well, certainly in Europe and North America), and I reconstruct the gene-
alogy of what we think of today as accepted and valid knowledge.
But—and this is important—the appreciation of a plurality of knowledge
systems does not mean that we have to integrate those systems. Various sys-
tems of knowledge have their cultural location (to borrow Jay Johnston’s
expression in her chapter above), which is fine. I would claim, for instance,
that shamanic knowledge provides a method for healing, not so much for
addressing questions in the social sciences. I want to maintain the prioritizing
of (self-)critical reflection when it comes to the core business of academia.
This includes the deconstruction of what we think we know, the open accep-
tance of the double-bind of scholarly work, and the appreciation of alternative
systems of knowledge that have their own cultural location.
The Power of Discourses and the Discourses on Power

With the double-bind of discourse studies in mind, I can also address Titus
Hjelm’s critique that my approach—and perhaps similar approaches that
Hjelm does not mention, such as SKAD—are “devoid of questions of power”
(p. 15 above). This interpretation misses an important nuance, because power
and criticism (Hjelm’s second theme) are two things to be separated. Power is
an element of discourse that plays a role in any form of analysis. Despite many
differences, all theories of discourse have this in common: they are problema-
tizing the triangle of power, knowledge, and subjectivity.
Discourses are formed by power structures, but because discourses rep-

resent power structures, they can also produce and reproduce them.
Power and knowledge are inextricably linked to each other. Power can
make knowledge ‘true’ or ‘ideological’, and it is through knowledge that
power can be exerted. Through discourses a body of knowledge circu-
lates in social groups and establishes itself in communities. Discourses
are central to the construction of subjectivities, identities, and rela-
tions, because those who enter a discourse are assigned a certain posi-
tion in the discourse and thus are enabled to gain recognition and
visibility.
angermuller 2014: 23; author’s translation
When it comes to the question of criticism, discourse-analytical approaches

part ways. What is referred to as critical discourse analysis entails a common,
normative claim that the discourse analyst should ‘take sides’ and ‘uncover’
the power structures that undermine the agency of the underprivileged. The
problem with such a claim is not its Marxist background (as Hjelm suggests),
nor the fact that Marxist ideology forms a bias that compromises the ‘objectiv-
ity’ of the researcher; the double-bind of discourse research makes it clear that
biases are part and parcel of discursive practice. The problem is that the bias is
built into the claims in a way that insists that all other researchers should also
include a critique (and not just a description of power relations) in their analy-
sis (which seems to be in tension with Hjelm’s claim that his “intention is not
to regulate” [p. 16 above]). This normative claim also tries to escape the infinite
regress of self-reflection that I mentioned above. Normative claims are the
objects of discourse analysis, not its instruments. And in response to Hjelm’s
claim that Muslims do not have the power to influence their depiction in
‘Western media’, we should not forget that—if you will allow me the play on
words—the (under)dog of one discursive constellation (‘Islam’) can be the god
of another (e.g., in Occidentalist discourses). Hence, I tend to agree with Reiner
Keller’s comment:
I doubt that discourse analysis should per se be critically oriented—in

my view this is an attempt at uniformatization and a prohibition of
thinking. […] Of course, aligning oneself with the family of critics
gives a “cozy feeling,” as Bruno Latour wrote some time ago. To me it
seems more important to make clear that we are dealing with more
than ‘newspaper analysis’ and that from a discourse-theoretical per-
spective you see something different than from other perspectives.
Ultimately, it is only the reception that decides on critical potential
and effects.
feustel et al. 2014: 500; author’s translation
220 von Stuckrad
Everything is Discourse? How Do We Select Data?

Another recurrent theme in discussions about discourse research is the ques-
tion of how we determine the limits of a discourse. People often ask: If every-
thing is discourse, and if discourses are all we have, how can we come to any
meaningful statement and analysis? Indeed, the limits of discourses present
an important challenge to discourse research, even if perhaps in a different
way than the question assumes. To begin with, not everything is discourse;
rather, everything can be ‘discursivized’, which means that basically everything
can—under certain conditions—become part of a discursive constellation.
There are two conditions in particular that should be mentioned here: the seri-
ality of a discourse, as well as the simple fact that scholars have to construct a
discourse as discourse and convince their peers of its significance.
The seriality of a discourse means that, although in principle everything can
become a discourse, only those signs and communicational practices that are
repeatedly visible and display a series of significant uses are likely to become a
discourse. For instance, if someone comes up with the idea of a flying spa-
ghetti monster and jokes about it among his friends in a bar, this does not nec-
essarily constitute a discourse worthy of discussion; but if that idea takes off
and gains significance in various contexts and groups, and if the idea material-
izes in institutions and juridical controversies, it makes sense to study the dis-
course on the flying spaghetti monster (as Teemu Taira does in the present
volume).
The second condition is a tricky one because it is part of a relativist and
pragmatist outlook that many people find hard to accept. Theoretically, there
are an infinite number of possible discourses that scholars could identify as
discourses. But the scholarly identification of discourses, or their grouping, is
itself steered by the order of knowledge, tacit assumptions, and other determi-
nants of which the researcher can only be partly aware. What is more, discur-
sive events (such as “9/11”) can change—almost arbitrarily—the focus of
interest in a scholarly and public community. Again, the double-bind of dis-
course research has a major influence on the ‘discursivization’ of events.
Apart from this double-bind, however, scholars need to convince their audi-
ence of the meaningfulness of their groupings and their (re)construction of
discursive constellations. They have to select and present their data in a way
that their peers and readers accept as evidence of a point well made. This is
even more important when it comes to groupings and constellations that run
against the tacit knowledge and more common groupings of ‘facts’ within that
community. In historical discourse analysis—and perhaps in most research
areas in the study of religion—the selection and interpretation of data has to
be done ‘by hand’. Going back to the example in this chapter, a quantitative
collection of all usages of ‘alchemy’ and ‘science’ could only be the beginning
of a qualitative interpretation of every single use of these terms, because it is
the context (of irony, for instance, which is impossible to detect using a search
machine) that determines the meaning of the discursive constellation.
Identifying patterns of meaning is something that escapes quantitative meth-
ods; it is a hermeneutical process that requires the active work of the researcher
and the combination of quantitative and qualitative research.
To convince our audiences, it makes sense to use data that has a clearly vis-
ible discursive impact (evidenced by numbers of books sold, the status of the
author as a leading scientist, national laws, large institutions, etc.). Often, it is
these sources that subsequently determine discourses on other levels as well—
even down to the names of grocery products and fashion labels—which in
turn stabilize the overall discourse. Theoretically, we could start our collection
of data at any level, and there is no hierarchy in discursive significance; that
I start my analysis of ‘science’, ‘alchemy’, ‘religion’, and related terms on the
level of scholarly data—rather than on the level of popular culture, music, or
fashion—is simply a pragmatic decision, because I can demonstrate the dis-
cursive impact of this data more easily than the discursive impact of, say, Dire
Straits’ 1984 “Alchemy” album. But in a final analysis, all of these levels together
constitute the discursive field of “alchemy.”
The fact that discourse research is potentially limitless (even if in practice
the researcher has to make strategic decisions and set up a comprehensive
research design) should be embraced as a virtue of our field, not seen as a
vice. Selectivity is nothing to be ashamed of, as long as the selections are
based on—to recall Foucault’s notion—“a group of controlled decisions”
(Foucault 2010 [1972]: 29) that are capable of convincing our readers and
discourse communities.
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chapter 10
Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? Religious

Identity in the Dutch Integration Discourse
Frans Wijsen
In contemporary Dutch society, the return of religion to the public arena (van
de Donk, Jonkers, Kronjee, and Plum 2006), and particularly the presence of
Muslim immigrants (van der Valk 2012; Geelhoed 2012: 13–16, 214), are sensitive
issues. The discourse about these issues is related to what is known as the heri-
tage of the Enlightenment and the values of modernity. In harmony with secu-
larization theories (Berger 1967; Luckmann 1967; Martin 1969), Dutch citizens
generally assume that modernity and religiosity—Islam in particular—are
incompatible. Many people are familiar with just one form of modernity—
namely, European or secular modernity.
Yet the notion that modernization means the eradication of religion is
increasingly contested. Various scholars recognize the existence of multiple
modernities (Eisenstadt 2003; Schmidt 2006; Bhambra 2007; Lee 2008; Fourie
2012), including religious modernities. This debate is not new. During their
colonial rule, Dutch colonial administrators in the Dutch East Indies tried to
integrate the Muslim majority there into what they perceived as an enlight-
ened colony by constructing a modern Islam and by separating religion
(Islam) and politics.
It is often assumed that there is a continuity between the way Dutch colo-
nizers and missionaries dealt with religion (Islam) in the Dutch East Indies
and the contemporary Dutch integration discourse, including the discourse
about religion (Islam) in the public arena (van Doorn 1995: 83; Kennedy and
Valenta 2006: 342–344; Scheffer 2011: 133); yet this continuity is not well
researched, and Dutch colonial history is often neglected in contemporary
integration discourses.
I will explore two main questions in this chapter: First, what is the relation
between the religious (read Muslim) identity discourses of non-Western immi-
grants and the integration discourses of Dutch citizens (Engbersen 2003: 60)?
Second, what is the relation between these contemporary discourses and colo-
nial discourses (Scheffer 2011: 150)? These relations can be understood in terms
of interdiscursivity (Fairclough 1992: 43) or ‘orders of discourse’ (Fairclough
1992: 68, 85). The colonial past offers ‘mental maps’ (Fairclough 1992: 82–83)

226 Wijsen
that are stored in the long-term memories of Dutch citizens and are drawn
upon when they have to cope with Muslims immigrants in the present.
In this chapter, I make use of data generated through interviews with
Indonesian Muslims in The Hague (Vos and van Groningen 2012; Wijsen and
Vos 2014; Wijsen and Vos 2015). I analyze these interviews from the perspective
of Dialogical Self Theory (dst) and interpret them using critical discourse
analysis (cda). Apart from social constructivism and pragmatism, the concep-
tualization of ‘identity’ as ‘narrative of the self’ (Ricoeur 1992; Taylor 1995;
Buitelaar and Zock 2013; Zock 2013; Buitelaar 2013a; Zock 2010) and positioning
theory (Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010: 120–199; Locke 2004: 74–76;
Tirado and Gálvez 2007) serve as a bridge between dst and cda.
It is my contention that bringing together both bodies of knowledge (dst
and cda) and exploring some of their common roots and key concepts enriches
both of these approaches and enhances immigration and integration studies
(Hall 1992). Some scholars work in both ‘schools of thought’ (Gergen 2006).
The founding father of Dialogical Self Theory, Hubert Hermans (2015: 2), argues
that we need ‘bridging theories’, but he does not mention discourse theory as
one of them. In my view, discourse theory qualifies as a bridging theory because
it crosses the boundaries of a variety of disciplines and research traditions, as
is evident in the present volume.
This chapter has three parts. In the first part, I analyze the contemporary
discourse about the return of religion to the public domain in the Netherlands,
in particular the perceptions of Islam as an ignorant and dangerous religion. In
the second part, I analyze the ways in which Dutch colonial administrators and
missionaries perceived Islam in the Dutch East Indies, their construction of
religion (agama), and its separation from traditional law (adat). In the third
part, I analyze how Indonesian immigrants in the Netherlands position and
identify themselves and perceive their religious identity in Dutch society using
critical discourse analysis as a method.
Religious Identity in Integration Discourse
In the Netherlands, religiosity and modernity are generally deemed incompat-

ible. Many people recognize just one form of modernity, namely European
modernity. From this perspective, one cannot be Muslim and Dutch at the
same time. Writing about the Western perception of modernization processes
in the Muslim world, Mahbubani (2010: 150–151) states, “[I]t is now actually
impossible for the Western mind to conceive of Islamic civilization reemerging
as an open and cosmopolitan civilization.”
Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? 227
Muslims who strive for modernization based on Islamic principles do not

perceive Islam and modernity as incompatible; there is a clash of voices. The
modernization process in Indonesia, for example, shows that radical Islamic
voices have had limited impact on Indonesian political discourse, despite
widespread perceptions in the media that Indonesia has been taken over by
political Islam (Mahbubani 2008: 162). Religious revivalism does not translate
into political choices. The story of Indonesia reflects trends in much of the
Islamic world. Most governments in the Islamic world want to safeguard their
Islamic traditions, but also want to modernize their societies (Mahbubani
2008: 163). At the launch of the Indonesia–Netherlands Society on 22 March
2012 in The Hague, the Indonesian Ambassador to the Netherlands (Marsudi
2012) said, “[I]t is easy to pick up bad news coming out of Indonesia’s political
life nowadays. The media report high-profile corruption cases, violent conflicts
in our communities, the use of excessive force by our policy, cases of bureau-
cratic red-tape and other misfortunes.”
In response to the negative image of Indonesia in the media, the Indonesian
Ambassador said that in Indonesia, “one can see a steady trend of a better rule
of law, better governance, better public services, and of course a totally free
media.” In the midst of the global economic crisis, “Indonesia consistently reg-
istered positive growth. In 2011, Indonesia’s economy grew at 6.4%,” and “Indo
nesia is registered among the 20 biggest economies in the world.” Moreover,
“[d]emocracy has taken root in our country. It has reached the point of no
return. In short, Indonesia is a rising economy based on a free market and
social justice.” The ambassador concluded, “Indonesia today is widely regarded
as a living proof that democracy, Islam and modernity can thrive harmoni-
ously together” (Marsudi 2012).
Not only the mass media but also policy documents tend to perceive Islam
as a backward and ignorant religion, as inferior to Dutch culture and civiliza-
tion, and as a threat to its ‘modern values’ and ‘heritage of enlightenment’. For
example, the Islam Memorandum on Integrity and Respect of the Protestant
Church in the Netherlands notes that Islam “did not go through the Enligh
tenment” and “brings along another worldview and another approach to real-
ity.” Drawing upon the opinions of “various congregation members,” “along
with part of Dutch society,” it asks whether “Islam is not a threat to our demo-
cratic society and the position of Christians” (Reitsma 2010: 13).
In the same vein, the Memorandum on Integration, Bonding, and Citizenship
of the Ministry of Social Affairs states that 61% of the Dutch population is of
the opinion that there are contradictions between indigenous and foreign citi-
zens, and that 41% is of the opinion that “a Western lifestyle and an Islamic
lifestyle are incompatible” (Donner 2011: 3). For this reason, it advocates the full
228 Wijsen
participation of foreigners in the Netherlands, rather than integration while

retaining their identity.
Both policy documents (explicitly or implicitly) draw upon public opinion
polls to reproduce the image of Islam as a completely different and potentially
dangerous religion. In cda terms, they use intertextuality in a discursive prac-
tice. According to Fairclough (1992: 84), intertextuality is “the property texts
have of being full of snatches of other texts, which may be explicitly demar-
cated or merged in, and which the text may assimilate, contradict, ironically
echo, and so forth.” In Fairclough’s three-dimensional conception of discourse,
intertextuality is a key concept in the analysis of discursive practice, which
“involves processes of text production, distribution and consumption” (Fair
clough 1992: 78), as is further explained in Titus Hjelm’s contribution to the
present volume (Chapter One). The terms text production, distribution, and
consumption are derived from Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of market (Faiclough
1992: 67), which is elaborated on in the chapters in this volume by Heinrich
Schaeffer and his co-authors (Chapters Seven and Eight).
The Heritage of Dutch Colonial History
The documents mentioned above seem to assume that the encounter with
Islam is a new phenomenon in the Netherlands. They tend to forget that
church–state relations were at the center of colonial history in the so-called
Dutch East Indies; that until 1949, the Netherlands had the largest Muslim
population in the world; and that even then the Dutch government had to
cope with modernist Islamic revival movements (Kennedy and Valenta 2006:
342–344). Thus, when scholars of religion try to understand how policy-makers
cope with the relation between the religious identity (read Islam) of post-
colonial immigrants and their integration into Dutch society (Engbersen 2003:
60), they can learn from ‘colonial lessons’ (Scheffer 2011: 150), particularly in
the Dutch East Indies (van Doorn 1995).
When we ask how Dutch missionaries and colonial administrators dealt
with religion in the Dutch East Indies, we first note that in none of the indige-
nous languages spoken in Indonesia is there an equivalent word for ‘religion’.
The notion of ‘religion’ as a separate entity did not exist. When missionaries
and colonial administrators—for various reasons—translated the word reli-
gion into Bahasa Indonesian, they used the word agama, which is the Sanskrit
word for “tradition,” “teaching,” or “post-Vedic text” (Smith 1963: 58–59).
In the process of Christianization, when indigenous peoples wanted to pre-
serve their ancestral traditions, Dutch missionaries used the word agama for
parts of the indigenous culture that could be accommodated to Christianity,
and they separated them from other (‘primitive’, ‘heathen’, or ‘pagan’) parts of
the indigenous culture that were incompatible with Christianity, which they
called adat (Kruithof 2014: 110–111), from the Arab word adah, which means
“custom” or “customary law.” Dutch colonial administrators used the word adat
for the pre-Islamic, indigenous customs and beliefs, in contrast to Islam, or
agama. This distinction was informed by colonial scholars of Islam, such as
Christian Snouck Hurgronje (1893), who discovered a deeper layer of native
customs and traditions underlying Islam. He considered Islam to be foreign.
Whereas Snouck Hurgronje acknowledged that most Indonesians were
Muslims, he thought that Islam as a foreign religion had not deeply their
affected daily lives. Snouck Hurgronje advised the Dutch colonial government
to accept the indigenous, local, native, or mystical form of Islam, which he
considered to be harmless, and to fight political and foreign forms of Islam
(including Islamic law, syari’ah), which he considered to be dangerous and a
threat to colonial rule and law.
Interestingly, the words adat and agama seem to have the opposite usage in
colonial versus missionary discourse. Whereas agama in colonial discourse
refers to dangerous Islam, that which is incompatible with colonial policies,
agama in missionary discourse refers to those parts of the indigenous religion
that are compatible with Christianity. Whereas adat in colonial discourse is
not harmful to colonial policies, being ‘customary’ or ‘indigenous’ law instead
of Islamic law (syari’ah), adat in Christian discourse is the tradition that is
incompatible with Christianity. In cda terms, this is rewording. Rewording is
the “generating [of] new wordings which are set up as alternatives to, and in
opposition to, existing ones. The term ‘rewording’ is a useful label for the inter-
textual and dialogic character of wording” (Fairclough 1992: 194).
Later, this separation became part of the language politics of post-indepen-
dence regimes (Anderson 1990). Agama was equated with world religions in
order to exclude Indonesian mysticism from the pancasila politics of the five
(or six) religions that are officially recognized by the Indonesian state—namely,
Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. President Sukarno
recognized Confucianism as a religion in 1965, President Suharto de-recog-
nized it in 1979, and President Abdurrahman Wahid recognized Confucianism
again in 2000 (Hidayah 2012).
Theoretical and Methodological Framework
When scholars try to understand the segregation or integration of Muslim

minorities in modern and multicultural societies, they often draw upon theo-
ries that create dichotomies between or within ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Scheffer 2011),
230 Wijsen
such as Cognitive Dissonance Theory (cdt) and Social Identity Theory (sit),
explaining inter-personal and inter-group relations. In a nutshell, sit assumes:
first, that a person’s identity or self-concept derives to a large extent from group
membership; second, that people strive for positive self-esteem and therefore
desire a positive social identity; and third, that people are willing to skew their
view of the ‘other’ negatively in order to enhance their own self-esteem (Tajfel
1978; Tajfel and Turner 1986). The evidence on which sit is based is overwhelm-
ing. Yet the evidence comes mainly from Western societies, and thus might be
culture-specific (Widdicombe 1998; Kim 2002). This theory does not explain
how people can be loyal to various groups simultaneously, why friendship with
out-group members exists, or why the overwhelming majority of people living
in multicultural societies manage to maintain harmony and avoid conflict.
Therefore, we look at religious identity in the integration discourse from the
perspective of an alternative theory, one that conceptualizes multiple identi-
ties and polyphonic selves—namely, the Dialogical Self Theory, or dst
(Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010). dst assumes, first, that the self can be
conceived of as a mini-society or a multiplicity of embodied I-positions, among
which a dialogical relationship exists; and second, that which narrative of the
self is chosen out of all the possible narratives of the self depends on the spe-
cific circumstances and concrete interests (Hermans and Gieser 2012: 2).
dst draws upon American pragmatism and Russian dialogism. From
William James, it takes the notion of the extended self. James went beyond the
separation of self and environment and distinguished between ‘I’ and ‘me’. ‘I’ is
the self as knower (subject); ‘me’ is the self as known (object). The self as
known is composed of all that the person can call his or her own: my body, my
clothes, my house, my wife, my children; that is, people and things in the envi-
ronment belong to the self to the extent that they are felt as ‘mine’. From
Mikhail Bakhtin, dst takes the notion of the polyphonic novel. Analyzing the
publications of Dostoevski, Bakhtin argued that in these publications there is
not one author at work—namely Dostoevski himself—but rather a multiplic-
ity of authors, represented by the characters. There is a polyphony or plurality
of voices, which was later coined as ‘intertextuality’ by Julia Kristeva. The ‘poly-
phonic self’ is a ‘society of “I” positions’ or ‘subject positions’.
The notions of ‘voice’, ‘polyphony’, and ‘intertextuality’ link dst and cda
(Buitelaar 2013b; Stock 2014). Basically, a key question in both approaches is:
“Whose ‘voice’ is this” (Fairclough 1992: 105). Critical discourse analysts assume
three things: first, that langue is a practice just as any other practice, and the
only difference is its linguistic form; second, that there is a dialectical relation
between language use and social reality; and third, that this relation is medi-
ated by discursive practice (Fairclough 1992: 71–72). Based on these assumptions,
critical discourse analysts develop three instruments that are used during
three stages of analysis. The first is description, or the analysis of discourse as
linguistic practice; this is the analysis of the formal features of the (written or
spoken) text. The second is interpretation, or the analysis of discourse as dis-
cursive practice; this is the analysis of the production, transmission, and con-
sumption of text. The third is the analysis of discourse as social practice; this is
the analysis of the social conditions and social effect of texts (Wijsen 2010;
Wijsen 2013). In the actual analyses, these stages may overlap.1 Thus, in our
theoretical and methodological framework for understanding the multiple
loyalties and polyphonic selves of post-colonial immigrants in the Netherlands,
there is a transition from an essentialist (primordial) to a constructivist cir-
cumstantial understanding of the self, and from an informative to a constitu-
tive understanding of language (Flood 1997).
Data Gathering and Analysis
During the past two years, my co-workers and I have interviewed 70 post-
colonial immigrants in The Hague and also analyzed websites of immigrant
communities (Vos and van Groningen 2012; Wijsen and Vos 2014; Wijsen and
Vos 2015). For the present chapter, we only use 15 of these interviews with
Indonesian Muslims in the Netherlands, because these interviewees are con-
sidered to be particularly knowledgeable about the topic in question—that is,
the relation between identity discourse and integration discourse, as well as
between these discourses and colonial discourse.
Asked whether Indonesian Muslims in the Netherlands identify themselves
more as Indonesians, as Dutch, or as Muslims, some older Indonesian Muslims
position the youngsters among them as less religious. One of them (IM10) says,
“You see, many youngsters with whom I sat in the mosque let’s say five, six years
ago, now don’t come to the mosque anymore […] They don’t look at their own
background anymore but go to parties and do other things. They lose their faith
slowly.” But other interviewees say that younger Indonesian Muslims are more
religious, particularly those who recently came from Indonesia. A second-gener-
ation Indonesian Muslim (IM12) says, “Nowadays there are many youngsters who
are Muslims, but only by name […] they don’t practice that much. But recently I
get to know more and more youngsters who do practice and who are also socially
active; thus they don’t practice Muslim affairs only but go out [to pubs] and these
kind of things […] They combine modern youth life and practicing as Muslim.”
1 These stages are further explained by Titus Hjelm in chapter one of the present volume.
232 Wijsen
In cda terms, the interviewee uses ‘overwording’ to stress that being a

odern youngster and being a practicing Muslim are compatible; these are
m
different I-positions or selves (Hermans and Gieser 2012: 14–15). The term over
wording refers to the use of different wordings, many of which are nearly syn-
onymous. According to Fairclough (1992: 193), overwording signifies intense
preoccupation with the topic. The same interviewee (IM12) continues, “[W]hen
they grow older, many youngsters discover, hey, I don’t know that much [of the
faith], and some of them really study [the faith], why do they [Muslims] say
this, why is it like that; they really want to know.” This Indonesian Muslim
(IM12) says that he does not like it when people say that the Islam of Indonesians
is “more modern” than that of other Muslims: “Islam is just the perfect belief;
what is it that could change? I mean, when you say [that you make Islam] mod-
ern, you imply that it [Islam] has [been] changed to make it up-to-date.”
Asked whether Indonesian Muslims identify themselves as Muslims or as
Indonesians first, a second-generation Muslima (IM14) says that she is first
Muslim, “because being a Muslim is not limited to one country only.” For this
interviewee, being a Muslim is the most important part of her identity, because
Islam offers a platform “to be able to be world citizen.” Thus, being a Muslim
comes first. She continues:
But, if I look at myself from a cultural point of view, Indonesia is in the

second place and the Netherlands in the third place. Yes, taking into con-
sideration your customs, norms, values, language, Indonesian is my mother
tongue and Dutch is my second language. If I look at food, and factors such
as this, then I am Indonesian; if I look at my way of life, I am more Muslim;
yes, the way I look at the world and the decisions that I make.
Thus, one can clearly see different I-positions (in dst terms) or subject posi-
tions (in cda terms) in different circumstances, as well as priorities among
them, distinguishing a “way of life” or a way to “look at the world” (Islam, which
comes first) from a “cultural point of view” (second Indonesia, and third the
Netherlands). But Islam is a ‘promoter position’ in the sense that it creates
order and direction in the ‘self as mini-society’ (Hermans and Gieser 2012:
16–18). One also notices that ‘subject positions’ are related to ‘mental maps’ or
‘shared knowledge’, which show the link between cda and cognitive science,
which is explored further in what is called critical epistemic discourse analysis
(van Dijk 2011; 2012).2
2 This is a rather new field of research, but it goes beyond the scope of this contribution.
On the one hand, youngsters tend to identify themselves as “more Muslim,”

while on the other hand, as “more Dutch”; according to them, this makes their
relationships with other Muslims easier. Being “more Muslim” and “more
Dutch” is not perceived as a contradiction; they don’t think in terms of ‘either–
or’, but of ‘both–and’. As the Indonesian Muslima (IM14) says, “At Al-Hikmah
[the Indonesian Mosque at The Hague], yes, when it is prayer time, you see
various colours; in the past, this was not the case.” A second-generation Muslim
man (IM13) says that the faithful are “mixing just a little bit” (in terms of their
ethnic or national backgrounds). He sees that more Muslims from the neigh-
borhood—i.e., Moroccan Muslims—come to the Indonesian mosque. And
according to him, for the younger Indonesian Muslims it is easier to visit other
mosques “because you speak a common language [Dutch] and you go to the
same school; thus it is easier to make contacts. For the elderly it is a bit differ-
ent” (IM13). On the one hand, this interviewee positions (Indonesian) Islam as
more and more Dutch (Islam). On the other hand, young Indonesian Muslims
describe themselves more as “world citizens” (IM12), less Indonesian or Dutch,
but “indeed, more globalized than our parents” (IM14). This interviewee (IM14)
says that she sees a difference between her generation and that of her parents
in the contacts that these generations have: “Because I see the difference
between [me and] my parents; they [my parents] looked for Indonesian
people in the Netherlands, but we, the second generation, I experience that we
are more outward looking, thus not only going to Indonesian people, but
we are more interested in international people so to speak; this is what I see as
the difference.”
Youngsters themselves identify their interpretation of Islam as purer—that
is to say, free of cultural ballast. A second-generation Indonesian Muslim
(IM13) says that he has a stronger bond with people who are also Muslim,
because “one understands each other more easily.” Referring to his Moroccan
girlfriend, he says, “She is really a person who is very non-traditional Islamic,
but very much focused on what Islam is, and not on what belongs to a certain
country or culture. She is very anti-Moroccan Islam, because there is so much
tradition to it”. The rewording of “tradition,” “non-traditional Islamic,” and
“much tradition,” as well as equating the phrases “non-traditional Islam” and
“anti-Moroccan,” shows that “tradition” does not refer to belief (Islam) but to
culture (Morocco). He and his Moroccan girlfriend agree that “a burka is really
something Afghan, and anyway has nothing to do with Islam, as Muslims we
are obliged to smile and greet each other in a friendly way, and you cannot see
this when you wear such a thing on your face.”
So, this Indonesian Muslim (IM13) draws upon the colonial distinction
between agama (religion) and adat (culture, tradition), and he uses the word
234 Wijsen
“traditional” in a way that is opposite to the way Dutch people and scholars of
integration discourses use the word “traditional” (Apitzsch 2003: 102). In this
usage, “non-traditional” Islam does not mean “modern” Islam, but rather
“orthodox” Islam, “pure” Islam, an Islam freed from customs and cultural tradi-
tions, or adat. Whereas Apitzsch (2003: 91) uses the word “traditional” in a dif-
ferent way for “religious traditionality,” she nevertheless reaches more or less
the same conclusion as the present study—namely, that religious traditional-
ity “potentially generates post-national, post-ethnic biographical reflexivity.” It
is not anti-modern, but rather a form of ‘bricolage’ and the identity negotiation
of immigrants in the modern host society (Apitzsch 2003: 102–103).
Conclusion and Discussion
From the above statements we can infer that, according to young Indonesian
Muslims, their Islamic voice (self) and their modern voice (self) are not incom-
patible. On the contrary, integration into modern Dutch society does not
require less Islam, but rather more Islam—pure Islam. Islam offers them a
platform to be “citizens of the world.” Moreover, they seem to suggest that the
discourse about the incompatibility of religion and modernity is a typical
Dutch, parochial, and narrow-minded discourse.
Dutch citizens, on the other hand, particularly policy-makers, find it diffi-
cult to understand that Muslim immigrants claim that Islam and modernity
are compatible, and policy-makers refer to statistics drawing upon what the
general public thinks (Reitsma 2010; Donner 2011). This incapability to link reli-
giosity—Islam in particular—with modernity is not new, as we saw from the
way Dutch colonial administrators coped with Islam in the Dutch East Indies.
It is my contention that scholars of religion can draw upon colonial discourses
in order to understand the relation between the identity discourse of non-
Western immigrants and the integration discourse of Dutch citizens (van
Doorn 1995; Scheffer 2011).
The finding that integration into modern Dutch society does requires more
rather than less Islam is not new; other researchers have also found a category
of orthodox Muslims who are well integrated into Dutch society (Geelhoed
2012; Kleijwegt 2014). Geelhoed (2012: 217) concludes, “Being modern, Western
and becoming a Muslim fundamentalist, can thus go hand in hand.” According
to her, “Islamic fundamentalism in the Netherlands is a truly glocal phenome-
non that would seem to be just as much—if not more—Dutch as it is foreign.”
The present study shows that young Indonesian Muslims do not want to be
either Dutch or Indonesian, but rather global or world citizens; for them, Islam
as a universal religion provides a platform for this. In the terms of dst, Islam is
a ‘promoter position’ (Hermans and Gieser 2012: 16–18); in cda terms, it is an
‘ethos’ that controls the construction of a particular version of the self out of
all possible versions of the self (Fairclough 1992: 166–167).
My findings also confirm recent studies on Salafism (Wagemakers, de
Koning, and Becker 2014). Salafism means going back to ‘old’ or ‘pure’ Islam, as
one of the interviewees said: “Islam is just the perfect belief.” The oldest tradi-
tions of Islam advocate a universal Islam, not the one that is found in hadith.
Being salafi does not necessarily prevent Muslims from being well-integrated
into Western societies.
Last but not least, I conclude that it is useful to combine cda and dst in
immigration and integration studies. Both schools of thought partly draw on
the same sources and concepts, although they use them in different ways, and
both ‘speech communities’ may mutually enrich each other in better under-
standing identity and integration discourse.
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chapter 11
Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse in

the Nordic Folk Church Context1
Marcus Moberg
Since the advent of modernity, the various meanings attached to the concept
of the ‘market’ have undergone significant shifts and transformations. While
primarily having denoted a more specific mode and physical space for the
exchange of goods in premodern times, from the modern period onwards, its
meaning has increasingly shifted towards a mode of social organization and
mechanism of governance (e.g., Slater and Tonkiss 2001). This latter under-
standing of the market has gained particular momentum through the prolif-
eration and implementation of neoliberal ideologies and policies on a global
scale since the early 1980s, and the concurrent definitive establishment of
consumerism as the dominant cultural ethos of late-modernity (e.g., Slater
1997: 24–25).
In recent decades, the overall impact of market logics and imperatives, neo-
liberal ideology, and consumer culture on late-modern social and cultural
life—including religion—has become the subject of a broad, cross-disciplinary
area of study. Even though consumer capitalism has long constituted a central
area of investigation and ideological critique within sociology and social- and
cultural theory, the contemporary relationships and modes of interplay
between religion and wider socio-economic conditions and arrangements still
remain a somewhat under-researched area within the study of religion in gen-
eral (e.g., Gauthier, Woodhead, and Martikainen 2013: 2). Over the past decade,
however, a substantial and fast-growing scholarly literature covering a broad
range of different perspectives and areas of focus has nevertheless emerged on
the subject (e.g., Moore 2001; Noll 2001; Carrette and King 2005; Mottner 2008;
Stolz 2008). More recent studies (e.g., Martikainen and Gauthier 2013; Gauthier
and Martikainen 2013; Stolz and Usunier 2014) have also h ighlighted how the
1 This chapter is based on research conducted in the project “The Mediatization of Christianity
in Post-secular Society: An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of Modern Communications
Media and Popular Culture within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland” (2011–2014),
funded by the Academy of Finland.

240 Moberg
rise of neoliberalism and consumerism have coincided with major shifts in the
global religious field, making it increasingly important for current and future
transformations in the field of religion to be approached and understood
“against the backdrop of wider socio-economic changes, catalysed by the
spread of consumerism and the neo-liberal economy” (Gauthier, Woodhead,
and Martikainen 2013: 24).
‘Change’, however, remains a notoriously difficult phenomenon to con-
ceptualize and pin down empirically. A focus on discourse and discursive
change, however, provides scholars with a particularly useful set of tools for
empirically exploring and highlighting the complex ways in which processes
of broader social and cultural discursive change relate to (as well as translate
into) processes of religious change. As Fairclough points out, through its
emphasis on the constitutive function of language and other modes of repre-
sentation (e.g., images, symbols), discourse analysis “has the capacity to put
other sorts of social analysis into connection with the fine detail of parti
cular instances of institutional practice in a way which is simultaneously
oriented to textual detail, the production, distribution and interpretation/
consumption of texts, and wider social and cultural contexts” (Fairclough 1993:
158). More specifically, it provides us with a particular text- and language-
focused way of more concretely pinning down and tracing changes in the
wider order of discourse in a certain social domain, such as institutional reli-
gion (cf. Fairclough 1993: 135).
Following Fairclough, such a focus on discursive change would, on the one
hand, be concerned with exploring “the specificity of particular discursive
events, as attempts to negotiate unstable and changing sociocultural circum-
stances in the medium of language” (Fairclough 1993: 137) and, on the other
hand, with exploring changes in wider “orders of discourse in the longer term,
towards shifting discursive practices within and across social domains and
institutions as one facet of social change” (Fairclough 1993: 137). The study of
discursive change in this respect therefore needs to include a historical vari-
able aimed at drawing our attention to “qualitative differences between differ-
ent historical epochs in the social functioning of discourse” (Fairclough 1993:
138). While such a historical variable should not be included for the sake of
being able to identify “radical disjunctures” in discursive practices between dif-
ferent, supposedly clearly marked historical periods, it can nevertheless be of
great help in identifying “qualitative shifts in the ‘cultural dominant’” with
respect to the “nature of the discursive practices which have most salience and
impact in a particular epoch” (Fairclough 1993: 138). In other words, striving to
identify which discursive formations and practices appear to hold particular
prominence and salience across different social and cultural fields during a
Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse 241
certain time period provides us with a good starting point for exploring the
dialectical and mutually affective relationship between processes of religious
change and wider social and cultural change.
One widely debated development that is of particular interest in this regard
is the (supposedly) accelerating general erosion of tradition in the West in
recent decades and the (supposedly) resulting emergence of a ‘post-traditional
society’—a development that is typically understood to have brought about an
increasing general emphasis on reflexivity, personal autonomy, and the pri-
macy of the individual as the “basic unit of social reproduction” (Adams 2007: 7).
While we should always remain wary of uncritically accepting such sweeping
characterizations wholesale, and accepting the proviso that grand theorizing
on the emergence and nature of post-traditional society has at times been pur-
sued in a highly generalizing fashion, several notable general transformations
in discursive practices in recent decades could nevertheless be viewed as being
both implicated in and reflective of these more general shifts. For example, as
Fairclough (1993: 140) has argued, “contemporary social life demands highly
developed dialogical capacities,” as evidenced, among other things, in a “great
increase in the demand for […] communicative labour” and a general “notable
new focus on training in the ‘communicative skills’” across a range of social
domains. Another closely related notable feature of contemporary discursive
change can be found in the increasing general shift towards a consumer or
‘promotional’ culture, central aspects of which have been “the incorporation
of new domains into the commodity market,” a “general reconstruction of
social life on a market basis,” and a “generalization of promotion as a commu-
nicative function […] across orders of discourse” (Fairclough 1993: 141).
Such developments can be conceptualized in various ways. The concept of
‘marketization’ occupies a central position in various types of scholarship on
political economy, politics, consumer capitalism, and consumer culture.
Although the concept has been utilized in a range of both evocative and
heuristic capacities (e.g., as a general umbrella term for coupling together the
values promoted by neoliberal ideology), it can generally be understood to
denote “the permeation of market exchange as a social principle” (Slater and
Tonkiss 2001: 25) and thus be taken to refer to the process whereby different
social and cultural institutional domains or subsystems become “subjected to
a deliberate policy of economizing” (Schimank and Volkmann 2012: 37). For all
of its implications in terms of critical theory, however, marketization (irrespec-
tive of whether it is understood in descriptive or largely evocative terms) needs
to be approached and understood as a multifaceted phenomenon that takes
different forms depending on the particular social and cultural context within
or in relation to which it occurs.
242 Moberg
Building on this general understanding, the concept of marketization can

then usefully further be approached from a more specifically discursive per-
spective and be understood in terms of a process that involves the promotion
and circulation of certain sets or clusters of discursive formations centered on
terms, notions, and values such as ‘deregulation’, ‘cost-effectiveness’, ‘privatiza-
tion’, ‘managerialism’, ‘new public management’, ‘autonomy’, ‘flexibility’, ‘enter-
prise’, and ‘entrepreneurialism’, to name just a few. Such an understanding
would be based on an originally Foucauldian understanding of discursive for-
mations as the “linguistic facets of ‘domains of thought’” (Fairclough 1992: 31).
In this understanding, discursive formations serve to construct particular
‘objects’ of knowledge in particular ways, in particular social contexts, at par-
ticular points in time—such as, for example, ‘the market’, the ‘customer’, or
‘civil service’. In this discursive perspective, then, marketization can be taken
to denote the process whereby ever more spheres or domains of both public
and private social and cultural life gradually become colonized and permeated
by market-associated discourse, language, and terminology.
There are now ample empirical grounds for arguing that marketization dis-
course, understood in this way, has indeed had an impact on contemporary
social and cultural life that extends far beyond the commercial or business world
proper, having given rise to a situation in which social activity and practice
within ever more social and cultural domains have become increasingly perme-
ated and governed by market-associated values and language. This development
has by now become well documented in relation to social domains such as educa-
tion (e.g., Fairclough 1993), healthcare (e.g., Hansen 2010), voluntary and chari-
table organizations (e.g., Bruce and Chew 2011), and non-profit and ideological
organizations (e.g., Dejlic 2006). Although it has already been noted, the spread
and effects of marketization discourse in the field of religion still remain to be
explored in greater detail, and while the spread of market-logics and consumer
culture ideologies within the Nordic Lutheran folk churches has received some
degree of scholarly attention in the past, particularly in relation to church wel-
fare provision (e.g., Pessi and Grönlund 2011; Høeg 2006; Bäckström et al. 2010),
the discursive dimensions of this development still remain largely unexplored.
Against this background, the aim of this chapter is to provide a general
account of the spread and incorporation of marketization discourse into what
I will refer to as ‘official’ Nordic church discourse. By this I mean the type of
church discourse that is directed towards—and produced with the intent of
being accessible to—a broader audience, such as all church members or the
general public. I will focus on the incorporation of marketization discourse
into official Nordic church discourse in the light of examples from various
types of official strategic documents, in particular. I will limit my focus to two
closely interrelated cases: First, to official Nordic church discourse that represents
and constructs the churches in question as modern civil-service providers.

Following their own experiences of long-term general decline, since the early
1990s, the Nordic churches have all struggled to redefine themselves as inde-
pendent civil-society-oriented social and ethical actors in their respective
countries. As part of these efforts, a growing emphasis on civil service, cus-
tomer orientation, and advertising have developed into recurring tropes in
official Nordic church discourse. As a second case, I will explore official Nordic
church discourse that highlights the need for organizational restructuring and
more effective management. As part of their efforts to redefine their institu-
tional identities, the Nordic churches have both adopted and implemented a
range of market-related organizational and managerial values. In relation to
both cases, I will direct particular attention to the ways in which the adoption
of such discourse is reflective of an increasing technologization of discourse in
Nordic church contexts—i.e., of the reconfiguring of existing discursive prac-
tices “according to criteria of institutional effectivity” (Fairclough 1993: 141).
Lastly, I will also briefly consider the possible practical consequences and long-
term effects of the appropriation of such discourse.
I will not engage in detailed, systematic analyses of particular texts in this
chapter. Rather, through focusing on the spread of a certain type of discourse
within church contexts, my main aim is to highlight, on a more general level,
how a focus on discourse and discursive change can provide the sociological
study of religion with useful tools that have the potential to open up new ave-
nues in the study of present-day institutional religious change. The chapter is
structured as follows: I will begin with a brief explication and discussion of
some of the key concepts and terms employed in this chapter (i.e., ‘discourse’
and ‘marketization’). In relation to this, I will also provide a general sketch of
the broader socio-cultural backdrop against which currently ongoing institu-
tional religious changes in the Nordic countries necessarily need to be under-
stood. The remainder of the chapter is devoted to a discussion and analysis of
the integration of marketization discourse into the official discourse of the
Nordic folk churches, in the light of a few notable examples. The main focus is
to highlight the discursive aspects of marketization and its spread within offi-
cial Nordic church discourse on the whole as one notable facet of contempo-
rary institutional religious change in the Nordic countries.
Discourse Analysis and the Study of Religious Change

in the Nordic Countries
Following the so-called ‘cultural turn’ of the humanities and social sciences, the
term ‘discourse’ has spread and become increasingly fashionable throughout a
244 Moberg
range of different disciplines, resulting in the development of a wide variety of

different, variously related, systematized, operationalized, and applied appro
aches to discourse and the analysis of discourse (e.g., Wodak 2008: 1). In the
study of religion, an enduring effect of this cultural turn has been the aban-
donment of generic and essentialized understandings of religion in favor of a
more sustained focus on religion as a variously socially, culturally, and discur-
sively constructed category (e.g., Lynch 2012: 85; for a more detailed discussion
of discourse analytic approaches in the study of religion, see Moberg 2013).
Since there are several excellent and detailed studies on the concept of dis-
course and the analysis of discourse already available (e.g., Fairclough 1995;
Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2008; van Dijk 2011), in this chapter, drawing in par-
ticular on Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis (e.g., 1995), I will briefly elabo-
rate on some key aspects that are of particular relevance for our discussion
here. First and foremost among these is the constructive and constitutive func-
tion of discourse. As constructive and constitutive of social and cultural reality,
discourses play a significant role in the construction of knowledge, the shaping
of social relationships, the positioning of subjects, and the perpetuation and
reproduction of power relations, dominant ideologies, and hegemonies in
wider society (e.g., Fairclough 1992: 3–4). As such, discourse is to be understood
as a form of social practice. This is to say, then, that communities, organizations,
and individuals alike produce and engage with particular texts and discourses
with certain intentions, and that they do so in relation to the particular “inter-
pretive principles” that have become associated with, established, and “natural-
ized” in relation to specific texts and discourses (Fairclough 1992: 84)—i.e., in
relation to specific, varyingly established ways of talking about and represent-
ing certain social and cultural phenomena, persons, or states of affairs.
A second point of particular relevance for our discussion here follows from
this. As a form of social practice, discourse should be viewed as standing in a
complex, dialectical, and mutually affective relationship with social structure.
It also follows that social, cultural, and religious change all need to be viewed
as processes that are intimately intertwined with changes and reconfigura-
tions in discursive practices across different spheres and domains in society
and culture at large, such as changes in the “cultural dominant” of the discursive
practices that have the most salience at a particular point in time (Fairclough
1993: 138). In their socially constitutive capacity, discourses are thus shaped,
transformed, and constrained by social structures, even while they simultane-
ously contribute to shaping, transforming, and constraining these very social
structures themselves (Fairclough 1992: 64).
Since the late 1970s, the Nordic countries have been experiencing many of
the main processes commonly subsumed under the general heading of ‘religious
change’ (cf. Moberg, Sjö, and Granholm 2014: 3–4). These include, but are not
limited to, a general decline in institutional religion, progressively weakening
mechanisms of traditional religious socialization, a general shift towards ‘indi-
vidualized’ or ‘subjectivized’ forms of religiosity, an increasing general ‘privati-
zation’ of religion, and the emergence of ‘post-institutional’ forms of religion
and religious communities. These developments have been long studied and
widely debated within the sociological study of religious change in the Nordic
countries (e.g., Kääriäinen, Niemelä, and Ketola 2005; Bäckström, Edgerdh,
and Petterson 2004; Halman and Riis 2003). The picture of the general state of
the present-day Nordic religious field that has been sketched on the basis of
these studies and debates has no doubt also long ago filtered through into the
discourse of the Nordic Lutheran folk churches themselves and has clearly
come to affect how they now view the general social and cultural environ-
ments in which they currently find themselves.
In spite of their differences, the Nordic folk churches share many notable
similarities with regard to their histories, relationships to the state, general
organizational structures, contemporary outlooks, theologies and ecclesiolo-
gies, and current social and cultural positions within their respective countries.
They are all, moreover, embedded in broader national social and cultural cli-
mates marked by very similar processes of religious change, and they are thus
currently facing many similar challenges. Shrinking church membership,
changing church-state relations, and changing relations between religious and
other social and cultural institutions and organizations have brought a range of
both organizational and economic challenges for these churches. Increasingly,
they all now find themselves in a situation where austerity has emerged as an
important agent of change, compelling them to downsize, economize, and re-
think their organizational structures (cf. Schlamelcher 2013).
Official Nordic Church Discourse on Civil Service, Customer

Orientation, and Advertising
Examples of religious groups employing various promotional tools—such as

the use of advertising and the careful management of their image in the pub-
lic media—can be found across much of the religious spectrum and should
thus not be regarded as a new phenomenon. Although such practices still tend
to be most commonly associated with smaller independent religious commu-
nities (such as various types of ‘alternative’ and evangelical groups), following
the accelerating marketization of ever more spheres of contemporary social
and cultural life and social and cultural organizations, many long-established
246 Moberg
institutional churches have also become increasingly compelled to reconfig-

ure themselves in accordance with market-oriented modes of organizational
culture and the perceived preferred modus operandi of ‘modern’ social insti-
tutions and organizations. In the case of the Nordic folk churches, one result
of this has been a growing emphasis on civil service, customer orientation,
and advertising across official Nordic church discourse on the whole.
We will begin by considering a more general example of a discursive repre-
sentation of a Nordic church as a modern, civil-society-oriented, and civil-
service-providing institution. The following excerpt is taken from the Danish
Church Ministry’s it-strategy, titled Church Ministry and National Church in
the Network Society, which was adopted in 2001. At one point, commenting on
the church’s adoption of electronic church book-keeping, the document states:
1. Willingness and courage to change

As a workplace and public administration, the ministry and the
church develop along with the rest of society. The electronic church
book-keeping project is an example of a willingness to change. Church
book-keeping must be developed so that it meets society’s expectations
about modern citizen service. (http://www.km.dk/fileadmin/share/
publikationer/224-folkevers.pdf)2
A number of issues can be noted with regard to this statement. We might begin
by focusing on issues relating to the vocabulary used and the relations of cohe-
siveness between sentences in the text (cf. Fairclough 1993: 136). For example,
when it comes to vocabulary, apart from being represented as a “workplace”
like any other, the Church of Denmark, which still holds the status of official
state church, is also represented as a “public administration.” In this capacity,
however, it is also represented in terms of a public institution that is supposed
to meet certain broader expectations; in this case, “society’s expectations
about modern citizen service.” The rest of the document from which the above
excerpt is taken does not, however, provide much further clarification about
what such “modern citizen service” would consist of exactly. Even so, it is nev-
ertheless notable that the Danish church explicitly represents itself as having
lagged behind when it comes to developing “along with the rest of society.”
Indeed, this reading is reinforced by highlighting the adoption of electronic
church book-keeping as an example of a “willingness to change” (in contrast,
for example, to a willingness to ‘improve’ or ‘adjust’).
2 Author’s translation from the Danish original.

It would, however, most probably be mistaken to simply view this state-

ment as an instance of pure self-reflection or self-criticism. We also need to
note how the self-critical tone of the statement simultaneously also func-
tions to signal a general openness to self-scrutiny and thus to work up a
representation of the church as a type of institution that does not (or at
least does not any longer) shun change and is always fully prepared to
improve itself, learn from previous mistakes, and “develop” concomitantly
“with the rest of society”. On a more general level, this also functions to con-
struct (and to further reinforce) a general image of the Danish church as a
fully integral part of both the past and future basic structure(s) of Danish
society on the whole.
In relation to this, we also need to consider the changing expectations of
individuals towards religious organizations. For one thing, in a broader social
and cultural climate marked by conspicuous consumerism (e.g., Slater 1997:
24–25), individuals increasingly expect products and services to be tailored
according to individual needs and preferences. Following on from this, indi-
viduals also expect the services offered to be of ‘high quality’ and, often, to also
be enjoyable and entertaining. Perhaps most importantly, individuals increas-
ingly expect to be able to exercise choice, or at least expect that their choices
will not be too restricted or limited (Stolz and Usunier 2014: 7–8). Like many
other religious organizations, the Nordic folk churches have openly recognized
and consciously sought to respond to such changing attitudes and expecta-
tions by engaging in different types of market research in order to be able to
identify core publics and ‘customers’, to gear services to niche audiences, to
improve their ‘quality’ and increase their entertainment-appeal, and to reduce
the demands put on (potential) customers in terms of lifestyle, belief, commit-
ment, etc. (for example, by reducing the time spent participating in divine
services or offering alternative ways of participating through the use of mod-
ern communications media) (Stolz and Usunier 2014: 17–18). On a discursive
level, this can also be seen in a general “avoidance of explicit obligational
meanings” and the development of a discourse that marks a seeming change in
the authority relations between church/institution and parishioners/custom-
ers (Fairclough 1993: 156–157) in that the two are increasingly positioned as
standing on more of an equal footing.
Let us now consider one example of a discursive manifestation of such
developments within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The follow-
ing excerpt is taken from its former official communication strategy, The
Communicative Church (Church Council 2004), which was formally in effect
from 2004–2010. Under the heading “Advertising and marketing,” the docu-
ment states the following:
248 Moberg
Our experiences so far indicate that even flashy media advertising can be
one, and sometimes a very effective, way of communication, among oth-
ers. Through advertising, it is possible to draw attention to certain things
and provide more information about them. Advertising also produces an
image of the church. Television advertisements in particular provide
added value to a product or event […] An essential part of advertising is
that the product should live up to its promises. If church services [divine
services] are advertised in a flashy way, then they also have to be planned,
prepared, and carried out more carefully than before. A church service
should meet the expectations of it that have been created through adver-
tising. Otherwise, a new attendee will be disappointed and is less likely to
attend again.3
church council 2004: 57
This excerpt is noteworthy in several respects. To begin with, I want to draw

attention to the ways in which explicit—or in discourse analytic terms,
‘manifest’—connections are made to the world of marketing and advertising.
As with the previous example, it is worth noting the type of vocabulary
employed in this statement. For example, we find vocabulary with conspicu-
ous links to market-terminology, such as “added value,” “product,” and “image.”
We should also notice how the ‘products’ talked about are directly linked to
perceived expectations created through advertising. On a more general level,
the above text thus constructs church members and potential members as
customers and church activities—including core activities such as divine
services—as products that can be engaged with through a framework of con-
sumption, and therefore also appropriately be marketed and advertised, like
any other product or service. Through the use of words such as “advertising”
and “product”, the construction of potential attendees at specially advertised
divine services as ‘customers’ becomes the indirectly implied inference,
although the word ‘customer’ is not actually used.
Although a more detailed analysis of this excerpt would fall beyond the
scope of this chapter, for our present purposes I want to draw particular atten-
tion to two aspects: Firstly, it constitutes a clear example of what Stolz and
Usunier (2014: 21) refer to as the increasing “blurring of genres”, which has fol-
lowed as a result of the marketization of religious organizations. Such blurring
occurs when the pressure to conform to perceived external, wider cultural cir-
cumstances and expectations leads to a loosening of previously more clearly
3 Author’s translation from the Finnish original.

marked boundaries between the ‘religious’, ‘secular’, or other aspects of the

‘services’ offered by religious organizations. Secondly, the above excerpt pro-
vides a clear example of an increasingly obvious technologization of discourse,
which serves to justify the establishment of a new general modus operandi
that is in alignment with perceived broader external market-mode expecta-
tions and criteria for success.
Official Nordic Church Discourse on Organizational Restructuring

and More Effective Management
As noted above, the past decade has witnessed a clear turn towards an increas-
ing normalization of a language of civil service, customer orientation, and
advertising within the Nordic folk churches. In tandem with this develop-
ment, a new type of official church discourse that emphasizes a general need
for organizational restructuring and more effective management has also
emerged.
Rather than producing actual goods for purchase, religious communities
tend to be primarily focused on producing a range of immaterial services, often
for multiple publics, including their own members, prospective members,
employees, volunteers, the general public, or all of these. Moreover, religious
organizations tend not to be financed by the sale of actual products, but rather
by the contributions, taxes, or donations of members or other types of part-
ners, such as states or local municipalities (Stolz and Usunier 2014: 6). In recent
decades, however, the character of church-state and church-civil society rela-
tions in the Nordic counties has undergone a range of significant—albeit often
subtle—changes. Although not as acutely felt in the Nordic welfare states as in
other parts of the world, the spread of neoliberalism has nevertheless brought
about some notable changes in the political economy of the Nordic countries
in the form of processes of decentralization and the gradual outsourcing and
privatization of public services. These developments have taken place con
currently with the establishment, perpetuation, and increasing normalization
of a general organizational and managerial culture underpinned by market-
oriented ideologies and values in political and public discourse alike. As a
result, and mirroring similar developments in many other European countries,
the Nordic folk churches now find themselves in a situation of “generalized
religious-secular competition” (Stolz and Usunier 2014: 7), in which they
increasingly have to compete with various other non-religious social organiza-
tions in areas such as social work and welfare provision that largely fell within
their own purview in the not-so-distant past.
250 Moberg
The general trend (or perhaps the increasing push) towards a new organi-
zational culture built on the widespread notion that ‘market principles’ (how-
ever vaguely articulated or defined they may sometimes be) constitute the
preferred—and indeed the only sensible—basis for social and institutional
organization on the whole has motivated a range of transformations in the
organizational culture and modus operandi of the Nordic churches. A market-
value-driven organizational culture is, moreover, one to which various notions
of management are intrinsic. Although it comes in many different forms,
management discourse functions to promote an array of neoliberal- and
consumer-capitalist-associated organizational values, such as cost-effective-
ness, management by objectives, adaptability, competitiveness, mobility, flex-
ibility, pragmatism, creativity, and maximization, to name a few (Gauthier,
Woodhead, and Martikainen 2013: 19–20; cf. Schlamelcher 2013: 53; Stolz and
Usunier 2014: 6–7; for a more detailed discussion of management discourse,
see for example Thrift 2005). Partly following from their own experience of
slow but steady decline and changing church-state relationships, the Nordic
churches have gradually started to reconfigure their organizational cultures
towards a market model. In the process, they have also clearly become ever
more susceptible to processes of internal managerialization (cf. Gauthier,
Woodhead, and Martikainen 2013: 21). For the purposes of our present discus-
sion, it is of particular import to note that these relatively recent changes so
far surface most clearly on the level of discourse.
Let us begin by looking at a more general example of this. The following
excerpt is taken from the official communication strategy of the Church of
Sweden, adopted in 2011. At one point, the document states:
1. The communication of the Church of Sweden is to be planned in a sys-

tematic manner and be carried out in an integrated way in order to reach
our overall communication goals. A shared view of the main objectives
increases the possibility to coordinate and utilize existing resources, and
also to identify areas where additional communication support is needed.4
kyrkostyrelsen 2011: 2
One immediately noticeable feature of this statement is how it draws on mar-

ket-discourse to emphasize rationalized, integrated, systematic planning and
the careful coordination of resources to reach pre-defined overall goals and
objectives. As in the Danish example above, it is also worth noting that the rest
of the document from which this excerpt is taken does not have much to say
4 Author’s translation from the Swedish original.

about what such systematic planning might entail in actual practice. Even so,
this type of discourse nevertheless serves to work up a general image of
Swedish church communication, and indeed of the Church of Sweden as a
whole, as a modern, effective, and well-managed organization. Indeed, in what
constitutes another clear example of an increasing technologization of dis-
course, general (and often vague) ‘planning’- and ‘effectivity’-emphasizing
vocabulary of this type has developed into an increasingly visible and recur-
ring trope of official Nordic church discourse on the whole.
Let us now continue by considering another example of a much more
explicit appropriation of such discourse from the church of Finland. The fol-
lowing excerpt is taken from a two-page informational/promotional leaflet
titled Our Church. A Participatory Community: Strategy of the Finnish Lutheran
Church until 2015 (also available in English). One section of the leaflet, titled
“Strategic Guidelines until 2015,” contains the subheading “Structures that
serve functions.” Under this subheading, the leaflet states the following:
• We are developing inside the Church a personnel structure that will

implement the strategic aims.
• We support the spiritual growth of our personnel.
• We will build the Church into an ideal participatory employer.
• We will maintain an efficient administration, both lightweight and
effective.
• We will keep our active units at a human size.
• We will invest more in strategically appropriate areas.
(http://sakasti.evl.fi/sakasti.nsf/0/9297F603C875C1C8C225770A002E3448
/$FILE/Our_Church_Strategy2015_t.pdf)
The above constitutes a particularly clear example of a seemingly wholesale

adoption and integration of market and management values and terminology
into official church discourse. All of the six points above—including the sec-
ond point (see Thrift 2005)—employ market-related vocabulary in more or
less explicit ways. For example, there is talk of “strategic aims,” “active units,”
making the church into an “ideal participatory employer,” developing an “effi-
cient” yet slim mode of administration, and “investing” in “strategically appro-
priate areas.” This statement thus also provides a particularly clear example of
a very deliberate technologization of discourse. As Fairclough notes, such tech-
nologization of discourse tends to be “most widely experienced in the form of
top-down imposition of new discursive practices by organizations upon their
members” (Fairclough 1993: 140). Although the discourse of the leaflet could
certainly be experienced in such a way by its audiences, it also contains a key
252 Moberg
characteristic of a promotional element in discourse, which functions to

‘soften’ its general tone in this regard—namely, the representation of both the
source and addressees of the discourse of the leaflet as a ‘we’ (Fairclough 1993:
146–147). This also connects to an increasing instrumentalization of discursive
practices that chiefly involves “the subordination of meaning to, and the
manipulation of meaning for, instrumental effect” (Fairclough 1993: 141). Such
discursive features play a central role in the institutional identity projected in
the above example. Rather than being impersonal, distant, or conservative, the
text in this example itself plays an active role in constructing a picture of
the Finnish church as a democratic and participatory community. Through the
repeated use of the word “we”, church members are, in a way that is partly
democratizing but equally instrumentalizing, discursively constructed as
forming a vital, equally partaking, and responsible part of the collective iden-
tity and actions of the church as a whole (cf. Fairclough 1993: 146–147).
On a more general level, the above example is also clearly illustrative of the
establishment and normalization within official Nordic church discourse of a
“promotional culture”, which “can be understood in discursive terms as the
generalization of promotion as a communicative function […]—discourse as a
vehicle for ‘selling’ goods, services, organizations, ideas or people—across
orders of discourse” (Fairclough 1993: 141). Another characteristic of the dis-
course of a promotional culture that is also clearly in evidence in this example
is the increasingly ambiguous dividing line between what is to be considered
information and what is to be considered promotion (Fairclough 1993: 150–151).
For example, the leaflet from which the above example is taken also contains
headings like “Respect for the Sacred,” under which we find statements such as
“We respect the Holy Trinity,” “We acknowledge the uniqueness of Jesus Christ,”
and “We see the image of God in people and their sinfulness.” The discourse of
the leaflet is thus marked by a high degree of interdiscursive complexity. It
constitutes an “interdiscursive mix” (Fairclough 1993: 146) that articulates a
variety of genres and discourses, combining religious genres with elements of
promotional and managerial genres.
Importantly, interdiscursively complex texts of this type also serve to posi-
tion subjects in complex and sometimes rather puzzling ways. With the excep-
tion of this example, all of the other examples cited thus far have been taken
from official church documents produced by smaller and clearly identifiable
groups of church officials, such as members of church councils or members of
other administrative or strategic units. The leaflet from which the above exam-
ple is taken, however, has no identified author or source. Although it addresses
an unspecified general audience—an ambiguous “we”—the principal sender,
disseminator, or source of the discourse in the leaflet remains (most probably
intentionally) elusive. That said, although the leaflet is clearly directed towards
as broad an audience as possible, it nevertheless positions church employees
as the ones who are taking (and are supposed to be taking) the type of action
that the discourse of the leaflet encourages. Indeed, on the whole, the dis-
course of the leaflet is very much oriented towards intentional action, in that it
foregrounds clear intent to act in certain ways so as to produce certain effects
or outcomes. The nature of the discourse being produced in a particular social
setting always needs to be considered in relation to the specific nature of the
social practice of which it is a part (Fairclough 1992: 80). However, since
the discourse of the leaflet clearly constitutes an instance of a very deliberate
technologization of discourse, the very nature of the social practice of which it
is presumably a part becomes somewhat confused.
Possible Consequences and Long-Term Effects of Nordic Church

Appropriations of Marketization Discourse
When exploring changing discursive practices as one facet of religious change,

it is also worth considering the possible consequences and long-term effects of
church adoptions of the type of discourse discussed above. One possible—and
even likely—result of the adoption and normalization of discourse that
emphasizes civil service and customer orientation is that the organizational
identity and self-understanding of the Nordic churches will increasingly shift
from an identity oriented toward supporting civil society and building com-
munity to one oriented toward providing services, in which members and
potential members are increasingly viewed as customers and the services
offered are designed to fit presumed customer needs and demands (cf.
Eikenberry and Kluver 2004: 137). Another possible—and equally likely—
consequence of the adoption of discourse that emphasizes organizational
restructuring and more effective management might be the gradual redefining
of the professional ethos and identity of church personnel. It is reasonable to
assume that this will involve a gradual shift from a pastoral- and community-
focused identity to a management- and administration-focused one. The adop-
tion of this discourse certainly might contribute further to what has been
called the ‘de-professionalization’ of the pastor by promoting and legitimating
a shift in the balance from pastoral duties, such as the conduction of church
ceremonies and pastoral care, towards administrative and management duties
(cf. Schlamelcher 2013: 60).
Increasingly, such outcomes can already be discerned at the level of actual
day-to-day church operations. For one thing, the adoption of marketization
254 Moberg
discourse has led to the formation of new strategic units focused on the practi-
cal implementation of the measures this discourse encourages, such as pon-
dering new ways to enhance the general ‘effectiveness’ of church administration
or engaging more actively with new media and media technologies. One
concrete result of this has been a notable increase in the numbers of church
personnel who work on administrative and strategic issues as opposed to ‘tra-
ditional’ parish-related work.
Concrete changes can be discerned at the parish level as well. One example
of this can be found in the Church of Norway, which has developed what they
call a “Template for Strategic Parish Planning”5 (http://www.gammel.kirken
.no/?event=dolinkandfamID=97729) that is to be implemented by every parish
in order to enhance the general effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of all par-
ish activities and operations. This template includes, among other things, fields
for the development of a “vision” for every parish, detailed monitoring and
continuous “analysis of the local community” in relation to every service
offered by the church, and careful planning and optimization of both human
and financial resources. One possible net effect of such measures is that day-
to-day parish operations in general increasingly come to resemble and take the
form of those of any other company or public institution, i.e., that parish work
will increasingly be formed and carried out in relation to external, market-
mode criteria of effectiveness. That said, the establishment of new practices
tends to be gradual and often partial. Presently, it is too early to say how the
types of measures encouraged by the planning template of the Norwegian
church will play out in actual practice, since it is reasonable to assume that the
types of practices that it encourages will have to be variously negotiated from
one local context to another.
Concluding Remarks
The principal aim of this chapter has been to illustrate how market and con-
sumer-culture values and imperatives have increasingly made their way into the
official discourse of the Nordic folk churches in the form of what I have termed
‘marketization discourse’. This development was illustrated through a general
analysis of a few concrete, notable examples from recent official Nordic church
discourse. While marketization as a social or cultural phenomenon or process
can be understood, approached, and explored in different ways, my discussion
in this chapter has been based on a discursive understanding of m arketization
5 Author’s translation from the Norwegian original.

as the process whereby the discourse of different social and cultural spheres—
in this case, the Nordic folk churches—becomes increasingly permeated by
market-associated terminology and vocabulary. I also suggested that this devel-
opment can be seen as illustrative of an ever more common technologization of
discourse in Nordic church contexts, following increasingly strong external
pressures to conform to ‘market’-oriented modes of social organization. While
the permeation of official Nordic church discourse with marketization dis-
course has indeed been gradual, during the past couple of decades, this dis-
course has become ever more firmly established and has increasingly come to
provide the unquestioned and taken-for-granted language for talking about and
conceptualizing church developments, aspirations, and agency across several
types of official church discourse (including, for example, ecclesiology, welfare
provision, diaconal work, environment and sustainability policies, etc.). As
such, the permeation of marketization discourse within Nordic church contexts
can be considered a factor worthy of serious consideration when striving to gain
an adequate understanding of currently ongoing processes of institutional
religious change in the Nordic countries, and indeed beyond.
As noted, apart from a general analysis of official discourse, it is also worth
considering whether the assimilation and integration of marketization dis-
course into official Nordic church discourse may serve to establish, reinforce,
and normalize market-logic and consumer-culture thinking in ways that have
long-term consequences and effects. The effects of discourse on social practice
are, however, always complex and dialectical in nature. Discourses, moreover,
are never static, nor do they function in isolation from one another. As noted
above, the nature of the discourse being produced in a particular social setting
always needs to be approached, so far as possible, in relation to an apprecia-
tion of the specific nature of the social practices in relation to which this occurs
(Fairclough 1992: 80). When marketization discourse surfaces in the official
discourse of the Nordic folk churches, as in the examples discussed above, it is
thus important to recognize that it does so within specific social settings that
are simultaneously also governed by a range of other church-related values
and discursive formations relating to such thing as ecclesiology, ecclesiastical
polity, various dimensions of practical theology (e.g., pastoral theology), and
communication theology. A question worth asking, however, is whether we
might now also be seeing an increasing saturation of such discursive forma-
tions with marketization discourse. Put another way, it is worth asking whether
it is now possible to identify the establishment and perpetuation of a new
“cultural dominant” (i.e., marketization discourse) that is beginning to have an
increasingly formative effect on the very character of church life, organization,
and practices on the whole (Fairclough 1993: 138).
256 Moberg
It remains clear, however, that a fuller understanding of the actual practical

consequences and effects of this development for Nordic church organization,
life, and practice cannot be adequately assessed on the basis of an analysis of
discourse alone. This would require combining the critical analysis of official
discourse with in-depth empirical explorations of how the incorporation of
marketization discourse into official church discourse actually plays out and is
negotiated in real life at different levels of day-to-day church life and practice.
Such an investigation would also ideally strive to identify any mutually affec-
tive relationships between the adoption, negotiation, and practical implemen-
tation of marketization discourse and changing ecclesiological, organizational,
and practical theological thinking within these respective churches.
In this chapter, I have aimed to highlight how a focus on changing discursive
practices might help us bring some previously largely unexplored but highly
notable developments in contemporary Nordic institutional church life and
practice into clearer focus. In particular, a more sustained focus on and moni-
toring of ongoing discursive changes would allow a firmer affirmation and con-
textualization of the concrete impact of current socio-economic factors and
wider socio-economic changes on present-day processes of institutional reli-
gious change.
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chapter 12
Critical Reflections on the Religious-Secular

Dichotomy in Japan1
Mitsutoshi Horii
The term shūkyō was developed as a generic category in Japan in the late
nineteenth century to refer to the English word ‘religion’. Adrian Hermann
has briefly discussed this in his contribution to this volume (Chapter 5), add-
ing that shūkyō also referred to the German Religionsübung. The term shūkyō
denotes the generic notion of religion as the binary opposite of the secular.
This specific notion of the secular as the binary opposite of religion is
referred to as the ‘non-religious secular’ in this chapter. At the theoretical
level, among the other contributions in this volume, this chapter most
strongly echoes Teemu Taira’s critical approach to the category of religion
and the entanglement of this classification with power (in Chapter 6). In the
same theoretical light, this chapter argues that the employment of the con-
cept shūkyō, based upon the ideologically demarcated distinction from the
non-religious secular, was fundamental for the construction of the Japanese
nation-state in the late nineteenth century as well as its reconstruction after
the Second World War. In other words, the discourse on and the category of
religion in Japan naturalizes the authority of the Japanese state and func-
tions to maintain its hegemony.
Following a short theoretical discussion, this chapter reviews how the cate-
gory of shūkyō emerged, how it was indigenized, and how it was employed by the
state to classify and regulate its domain. Whereas the construction of the cate-
gory of shūkyō in pre-war Japan has been extensively researched by many schol-
ars, including two recent English-language monographs (Josephson 2012; Maxey
2014), the same kind of critical engagement has not been extended to Japan’s
post-war era. In this light, the rest of this chapter is devoted to uncovering the
1 A draft version of this chapter was presented at the conference “Modern Government,
Sovereignty and the Category of Religion” held at Uppsala University, 8–11 May 2014. Debates
and discussions with various academic colleagues at this event have greatly contributed to
the refinement my argument, which has materialized as the present chapter. I would like to
thank especially Riksbankens Jubileumsfond for funding the conference and for making
such an intellectually stimulating experience possible.

religious-secular dichotomy in Japan 261
ways in which the categorization has been reformulated in Japan after the
Second World War, how its conceptual boundaries have been contested, and
how the discourse on shūkyō has generated a specific meaning of ‘religion’,
which has been entangled with the power structure of Japanese society. This
latter task will be the main focus of this chapter. Finally, following a discussion
about the colloquial meaning of shūkyō, the chapter concludes with implica-
tions for further research.
Theoretical Background
This chapter aims to be a modest contribution to a critical discursive study of

‘religion’ within academic theories and practices on ‘Japanese religion’. The
argument presented in this chapter has been informed by a body of theory
often referred to as “critical religion” (e.g., Fitzgerald 2000, 2007a, 2007b;
Masuzawa 2005; McCutcheon 1997, 2001). Echoing Goldenberg (2013: 40), the
goal is “to build an argument for curtailing the use of category of ‘religion’,”
specifically, in the case of this chapter, within the Japanese context. Like many
other abstractions, ‘religion’ should be understood as “an empty signifier in the
sense that it is historically, socially and culturally constructed and negotiated
in various situations” (Taira 2013: 26). In other word, the term ‘religion’, as an
empty signifier, “can be activated with definitions, meanings, and communica-
tional practices” (von Stuckrad 2013: 17). Pointing out the ‘emptiness’ of this
category does not mean that religion (however defined) does not exist.
‘Emptiness’ is the very nature of any social category, and this does not mean
that these are ‘unreal’ and unimportant. The empty category of religion is ‘real’
and important, as Beckford (2003: 24) rightly highlighted, “in the sense of pro-
ducing effects on some human lives and societies.” Therefore, what can be
meaningfully studied with regard to ‘religion’ is “the processes of communica-
tional generation, legitimatization, and negotiation of meaning system” (von
Stuckrad 2013: 18) carried out by the employment of the term ‘religion’ in a
specific historical and cultural context.
Peter Beyer (1998; 2006; 2013) has rightly highlighted that ‘religion’ is a glo-
balized category. This Western “folk category” (Saler 1993) has been imported
to and appropriated in many different parts of the world, including Japan. In
the case of Japan, the term was encountered for the first time in the mid-nine-
teenth century and had been appropriated by the local language by the late
nineteenth century. A number of books and articles have been written about
the history of Japanese religion(s). Some of them have reflected upon the afore-
mentioned ‘critical religion’ perspectives. These include Beyer’s sociological
262 Horii
explorations of religion in Japan in the context of globalization (2006: 225–52;

2003a: 172–74). Having reflected upon and criticized ‘critical religion’ perspec-
tives, however, he maintains his projection of the generic notion of religion
upon Japan and other countries in the light of Niklas Luhmann’s systems the-
ory (Beyer 1998; 2003b). Kleine (2013) also acknowledges ‘critical religion’ per-
spectives but disagrees with them, so as to assert that the concept ‘religion’ is
applicable to premodern Japan within the framework of Luhmannian systems
theory. These claims need to be contested before we can critically examine the
notion of religion in Japan.
From a ‘critical religion’ perspective, reference to Luhmann’s systems theory
of religion cannot justify the generic utilization of ‘religion’ as an analytical
category. This is not to dismiss altogether the intellectual value of Luhmann’s
systems theory for the discursive approach to ‘religion’. For example, Stephanie
Garling (in Chapter 2 of this volume) has highlighted the usefulness of
Luhmann’s systems-theoretical perspective on ‘risk’ for examining specific dis-
courses on ‘religion’ in the field of development cooperation. What I would like
to critique here, however, is the generic notion of religion that is embedded in
Luhmann’s sociology of religion. When Beyer (1998) and Kleine (2013) autho-
rize their generic utilization of ‘religion’ under the authority of Luhmann, they
seem to be repeating Luhmann’s category mistake in their own discourses.
Luhmann (1985; 2013) conceptualizes ‘religion’ as a distinctive field of “a self-
referential system” or “the autopoiesis of communication” guided by the tran-
scendence-immanence binary code. ‘Religion’ in Luhmann’s analysis is a
functional social system alongside other (ostensibly non-religious secular)
systems such as economy, science, politics, and the like. Importantly, ‘religion’
in this sense is a modern construct, as Beyer (1998: 157) rightly and strongly
emphasizes. The category of religion, as opposed to the non-religious secular,
emerged as clearly articulated rhetoric in the late seventeenth century and was
institutionalized in the late eighteenth century (Bossy 1982; J.Z. Smith 1998;
Fitzgerald 2007a; Nongbri 2013).
At this point, it is possible to interpret Luhmann’s system theory of religion
as an attempt to articulate the discursive construction of the category ‘religion’
as a self-referential system of communication which reproduces and main-
tains itself. However, what is confusing about Luhmann’s narratives is that this
specifically modern notion of religion is projected back onto premodern social
contexts, such as medieval Europe and ancient Greek city-states. This pattern
is repeated by Beyer (1998) and Kleine (2013). From a ‘critical religion’ perspec-
tive, this is Luhmann’s major drawback. It indicates that the very discourse in
which Luhmann articulates ‘religion’ as a modern construction is, at the same
time, parasitized by the notion of “sui generis religion” (McCutcheon 1997),
manifested as the generic idea of religion as a universal aspect of human lives

throughout history. In my view, by referring to Luhmann, what Beyer and
Kleine authorize is their own belief in sui generis religion. In this way, they are
making the same category mistake as Luhmann.
In this light, assuming ‘religion’ in Japan before the mid-nineteenth century is
highly problematic. Kleine (2013) claims that, between the beginning of the
ninth century and the latter half of the twelfth century, such distinctions as
seken/shusseken and ōbō/buppō were emic equivalents of the religious-secular
dichotomy guided by the transcendence–immanence binary. He translates the
terms seken and shusseken as “things that belong to this world” and “those which
transcend the world,” respectively (Kleine 2013: 14). He refers to the concepts of
ōbō as “the ruler’s law” and buppō as “the Buddha’s law” (Kleine 2013: 20). Referring
to various historical documents, he concludes that the notions of “things that
belong to this world” and “those which transcend the world,” on the one hand,
and ‘ruler’ and ‘Buddha’, on the other hand, equate with the transcendence–
immanence binary and correspond to the ‘secular’ and ‘religion’, respectively.
A critical reading of historical studies, however, leads us to a very different
conclusion. The historical surveys indicate that medieval Japanese distinctions
such as seken/shusseken and ōbō/buppō are, in fact, very different from either
the transcendence–immanence binary or religion–secular dualism. Although
the discourse of the historical studies referred to below also carries a sui generis
concept of religion and uncritically projects the modern notion of religion
onto the premodern Japanese context, more importantly, what a close reading
of these studies suggests is not only the absence of the generic category of
religion in premodern Japan, but also the non-existence of a self-referential
system guided by the transcendence–immanence or religious–secular binary.
As for the seken–shusseken binary, for example, Abe (1995: 32–97) demon-
strates in his historical survey that, during roughly the same historical period
as that of Kleine’s study, the term seken meant the network of human relations
in which the individual was deeply embedded. In this context, shusseken
referred to one’s seclusion from seken. Nevertheless, being shusseken is still
encompassed by seken in a wider sense, which meant the totality of the world.
The notion of seken in this sense denoted the entirety of the premodern
Japanese universe, which included both visible (or manifested) and invisible
(or latent) realms, both worlds for the living and for the dead, and every
humans and non-human being, whether sentient or non-sentient. In addition,
in this premodern Japanese cosmology, the default state of all existence and
nonexistence is imagined as transient. In this light, it is clear that the seken–
shusseken distinction cannot be conceptualized in terms of transcendence–
immanence dualism.
264 Horii
Kleine’s second example, the ōbō–buppō distinction, cannot be represented

as the transcendence–immanence binary either. According to Kuroda (1996),
while ōbō referred to the system of power represented by the emperor (war-
riors and courtiers), buppō denoted the major temple-shrine complexes as a
distinctive form of ruling power. During the historical period of Kleine’s study,
there was a principle of the mutual dependence of ōbō and buppō. This prin-
ciple reflected the entry of the major temple-shrine complexes into the struc-
tural principle of the ruling order as a whole. This same idea has been
highlighted by Adolphson (2000), Ito (2008), and in other works by Kuroda
(1980; 1983) in their extensive explorations of the ruling structure in Japan
between the ninth and fourteenth centuries. There seems to be no justification
for assuming that the authority of temples and shrines as ‘transcendent’ was
opposed to the ‘immanent’ ruling powers of warriors and courtiers, as repre-
sented by the emperor. The binary of transcendence/immanence does not
reflect the ruling structure of premodern Japan, as characterized by the ōbō-
buppō distinction.
Given this, the following discussion takes a fundamentally different theo-
retical approach (from that of, for example, Beyer and Kleine) by conceptual-
izing ‘religion’ in Japan purely as an empty signifier invented in the nineteenth
century, without utilizing the term as a generic, analytical category. Conversely,
it shares the theoretical orientation demonstrated by Taira in Chapter 6 of this
volume. In other words, Taira’s critical approach to the discourse on ‘religion’ is
applied to the Japanese context by turning the generic and analytical utiliza-
tion of the term shūkyō into a subject of critical inquiry. More specifically, this
chapter examines the classificatory practice of the generic notion of shūkyō
and how this functions to naturalize a specific configuration of power. The
category of shūkyō serves the norms and imperatives of the ostensibly non-
religious secular Japanese state. The state, by defining itself against ‘religion’,
naturalizes its authority and value orientations.
The Invention of ‘Religion’
In his book The Invention of Religion in Japan, Jason Josephson (2012) demon-
strates—using diaries and diplomatic materials from Japan, the us, France,
and the Netherlands—how the concept of religion was introduced to Japan
during the power struggles of international diplomacy in the mid-nineteenth
century. Japanese translators first encountered the English word ‘religion’ in
the 1850s. ‘Religion’ as a newly imported concept was translated into Japanese
in a number of different ways, but it was during the Meiji period (1868–1912),
more specifically in the 1880s, that the word shūkyō established its place in the
Japanese language as the definitive translation for ‘religion’ (Isomae 2003, 2005,
2007; Shimazono 2004a).
As a background to the construction of the category shūkyō, it is important
to recognize the particular circumstances of Japan with respect to interna-
tional relations with the West. Ever since Matthew C. Perry, a commodore of
the us Navy, arrived in Japan in 1853 and demanded the opening of the coun-
try, one of the most important matters for the Americans in negotiations with
Japan was ‘freedom of religious belief’. This was the demand for a constitu-
tional guarantee of the right to practice Christianity in Japan. At the same
time, according to Isomae (2007: 93): “With the opening of the country to the
West, mid-nineteenth-century Japan’s status as a sovereign nation-state
remained elusive owing to unfair treaties established with Western countries.”
Thus, it became an urgent task for Japan to adapt itself to a Western-style
nation-state model in order to be acknowledged as an independent nation-
state and to avoid following the path of a colonial state. Isomae (2007: 93)
notes, “Essential conditions to be achieved included the establishment of a
constitution and recognition of Christianity.” On the Japanese side, having for
many years perceived Christianity as ‘heresy’ and a threat to social order, the
process of translating ‘religion’ into Japanese therefore consisted of “tactical
efforts on the part of Japanese diplomats to quarantine Christianity and fore-
stall missionary activity” (Josephson 2012: 4).
The invention of the category shūkyō played an integral role in creating the
ostensibly non-religious secular domain, in which the legitimacy of the mod-
ern Japanese nation-state was authorized and maintained. This realm of state
orthodoxy, reified as the binary opposite of ‘religion’, is called “the Shinto secu-
lar” by Josephson (2012). This is referred to as “the hybrid Shinto-scientific ide-
ology, formulated in terms of a nation-state, articulated in relation to the
person of the emperor, distinguished from religion, and intended to produce a
unified Japanese subjectivity” (Josephson 2012: 19). Shinto (literally, “the Way
of the Kami” or “the Way of the Gods”) was represented by the Meiji govern-
ment as “public worship,” which was associated with the notion of “social
unity” and “thus became a point of national pride and uniqueness” (Thal 2002:
107). The government needed to “produce the image of the transcendent col-
lective unity of the nation-state” (Ketelaar 1990: 121).
Pre-Meiji Japan “lacked anything resembling a modern state” (Ravina 1995:
1000). It was characterized by “an intricate patchwork of district governments,
with broad areas of ambiguous and overlapping authority” (Ravina 1995: 1000).
In order to succeed, therefore, the newly formed Meiji government “needed to
redirect the Japanese people’s loyalties from their old domains to the new
266 Horii
state” (Doak 1997: 286). It was this “desire for unity” (Thal 2002: 107) that mobi-
lized the Meiji government to utilize Shinto symbolism to create “its first
national ceremonial calendar, flag, national anthem, and rites of state accessi-
ble to all subjects” (Hardacre 1989: 4) in order to resemble European nations.
Drawing on Hobsbawm and Ranger’s (1983) famous phrase, Hardacre (1989: 4)
claims that Shinto was an “invented tradition,” invented by the Meiji govern-
ment “to unite disparate elements into a modern nation.”
It was during the early Meiji period when the “historical consciousness” of
an indigenous entity called Shinto clearly took shape, as if it had existed in
Japan since ancient times (Kuroda 1981: 19). In premodern times, what consti-
tuted the customs and beliefs of the Japanese people “was the kenmitsu
Buddhist system including its components, such as Shinto and the Yin-yang
tradition, and its various branches, both reformist and heretical” (Kuroda 1981:
20). This was a “comprehensive, unified and self-defined system” in Japan in
pre-modern times (Kuroda 1981: 20). It was from the kenmitsu system that
Shinto was extracted to be an independent entity, and it was represented as
‘indigenous’. This process was achieved “both in name and in fact with the rise
of modern nationalism” (Kuroda 1981: 19) by the so-called nativist scholars in
the second half of the nineteenth century, during the decline of the Tokugawa
shogunate and the establishment of a centralizing, imperial government in its
place. According to Thal (2002: 101), “worship of the kami [gods] emerged from
the activities of scattered scholars and priests to coalesce into a widely recog-
nized entity called Shinto central to the political and intellectual life of the
emerging nation-state.” The construction of Shinto was “never intended to rep-
resent or codify the amorphous faith of the people seen in innumerable, local-
ized, and highly diverse cults of kami” (Hardacre 1986: 53). Instead it “gradually
transformed local folk Shinto shrines into political instruments for inculcating
emperor-centred patriotism and values of social harmony” (Garon 1997: 65)
and simultaneously for “inculcat[ing] in the people a willingness to follow the
state’s commands regarding taxation, conscription, and a host of other mat-
ters” (Hardacre 1986: 53).
The construction of the Shinto secular required the notion of religion. In
other words, the category of shūkyō was utilized by the state in order to main-
tain its hegemony over competing institutions and value orientations.
Specifically, this category included Buddhism, Christianity, and sectarian
Shinto (which had divorced from the state-authored Shinto institution). These
three religions are also modern constructs. In particular, ‘Buddhism’ was given
an independent ontology in the process of constructing ‘Shinto’ (Ketelaar 1990;
Snodgrass 2003), when it was extracted from the so-called “kenmitsu system”
(Kuroda 1981). The important point is that, by defining the realm of shūkyō as
the binary opposite of the ostensibly non-religious secular national ethos, the
state attempted to secure its dominance by excluding ‘religions’ from its opera-
tion. Buddhist temples were part of the pre-Meiji ruling structure, whereas
Christianity was perceived as ‘heresy’ and a threat to social order. Doctrinal
disagreements within Shinto were represented as the ‘religion’ of sectarian
Shinto. Maxey (2014: 3) summarizes this as follows: “Efforts to shield the state
from competition with Christianity, from Buddhist disaffection, from interne-
cine conflict among Shinto priests […] led to the political construction of reli-
gion as a category to be rendered distinct from the state.”
The state’s control over shūkyō was paradoxically further reinforced by the
constitutional notion of ‘freedom of religion’. This was guaranteed in Japan by
the Constitution of the Empire of Japan of 1889 (the so-called Meiji
Constitution). Article 28 states: “Japanese subjects shall, within limits not prej-
udicial to peace and order, and not antagonistic to their duties as subjects,
enjoy freedom of religious belief” (National Diet Library 2003–2004c).
“Freedom of religious belief” is a translation of the Japanese phrase “shinkyō no
jiyū.” The term shinkyō was popularized by Yukichi Fukuzawa (1835–1901), a
prominent intellectual and writer in Meiji Japan. He used the term in 1866 in
his work introducing Western civilization. “Shinkyō” literally means “belief
teaching.” By the 1870s, this term was used to mean something like “religious
conviction” (Josephson 2012: 232). The employment of shinkyō, as the constitu-
tional category for shūkyō, indicates that “what was guaranteed was a type of
belief, located in a private sphere, not a freedom of association, political action
or indeed anything that could be externalized in public” (Josephson 2012: 232).
This constitution therefore confines whatever is defined as shūkyō to the
private sphere and legitimizes the state’s authority over the public. Importantly,
the category of shūkyō, in the context of ‘shinkyō no jiyū’, was often interpreted
as “a pejorative label for an inadequate, or subversive, form of knowledge and
education” (Ketelaar 1990: 132). This kind of negative connotation of the term
shūkyō, circulated in government discourses on ‘religion’, authorized the state
to establish constitutional ‘limits’ on ‘freedom of religious belief’. According to
Isomae (2007: 93): “Following the principle of Western-style enlightenment,
‘religion’ (shūkyō) was entrusted to the sphere of the individual’s interior free-
dom, while the ‘secular’ sphere of morality (dōtoku) was determined to be
national, and thus a public, issue.” The state regarded whatever was defined as
shūkyō with indifference, as long as it remained within the private realm; all
possible means of its external expression were subject to regulation. This
notion of the non-religious public, separated from the religious private, was
therefore manifested as the ‘secular’ domain of which the state takes control.
Josephson (2012: 21) explains: “By defining religion as a particular type of
268 Horii
interiority, this constitutional guarantee did not actually produce more free-
dom. Paradoxically, guaranteeing freedom of religion enabled the state both to
appease international power and to maximize a rigorous control over all exter-
nal manifestation of ‘religion’.”
The social category of shūkyō was constructed outside the realm of the
Shinto national ethos. This was manifested in the institutional arrangement of
the state. For example, both Shinto and Buddhism had been administered by
the Ministry of Education (Kyōbushō) until 1877. Thereafter, the responsibility
was taken over by the Bureau of Shrines and Temples (Shajikyoku) of the
Home Ministry (Naimushō). In 1886, the Bureau was divided into a shrine
section and a temple section, thus clarifying an administrative distinction
between shrines and Shinto-related sects, on the one hand, and Buddhist
temples, on the other. In 1900, two new bureaus were created in place of the
Bureau of Shrines and Temples: the Shrine Bureau (Jinjakyoku) and the
Religions Bureau (Shūkyōkyoku). While the former was designated as relating
to the Shinto national ethos, the latter administered the officially recognized
shūkyō—namely, Buddhism, sectarian Shinto, and Christianity. Such an insti-
tutional division is symbolic of the construction of shūkyō as a category sepa-
rate from Shinto.
At the same time, the institutional manifestations of shūkyō—the three reli-
gions of Buddhism, Christianity, and sectarian Shinto—were utilized by the
state as a means of what Garon (1997) calls “moral suasion.” Government offi-
cials “routinely called on the three religions to aid the government in propagat-
ing ‘moral suasion’ to their adherents and the general populace” (Garon 1997:
67). The symbolism of this is that when shūkyō (‘religion’) became incorpo-
rated into a legal category, it was classified under the legal category of kōeki,
which can be translated as “public good,” “public benefit,” or “public interest.”
Hardacre (2003: 136) notes, “Religious organizations were recognized as work-
ing for the ‘public good’ (kōeki).” The organizational manifestation of shūkyō
was only allowed to exist as long as it served the ostensibly non-religious secu-
lar state. Importantly, unofficial faith groups outside the category of shūkyō
were labeled “at best ‘pseudo religions’ (ruiji shūkyō), and at worst, ‘evil cults’
(jakyō)” (Garon 1997: 60). These were said to be organizations which “engage in
activities resembling those of religions, yet do not belong to the denomina-
tions and sects of Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity” (Directive of 3 March
1919, quoted in Garon 1997: 73). Those faith groups that did not belong to the
official classification of ‘religion’ were subject to harsh persecution. In this way,
the discourse on ‘religion’ was deeply connected to the ruling power of the
state. The government’s classificatory practice of shūkyō resulted in the crimi-
nalization of specific faith groups, which were excluded from the category.
Post-war Re-classification
After the Second World War, the category of shūkyō was reformulated into a
more inclusive social category. This new classification was largely carried out
during the Allied Occupation, between 1945 and 1952, and was closely associ-
ated with the implementation of American-style liberal democratic ideology.
In short, American liberal democratic values and sensitivity played an impor-
tant role in the formation of the post-war Japanese religion–secular dichotomy.
The post-war (re-)classification of shūkyō in Japanese society formulated a tri-
umphant discourse of liberalism, represented as the liberation by democratic
America of the Japanese people from its Emperor system, the state-sponsored
shūkyō called ‘State Shinto’. This also represents a reorganization of state power
and social order. When the category of shūkyō was given this new meaning, its
entanglement with the state was transformed into a new constellation.
The us government started planning for post-surrender Japan well before
the actual date of the surrender. Importantly, the United States Initial Post-
Surrender Policy for Japan (National Diet Library 2003–2004a), issued in April
1945, states, “Freedom of religious worship shall be proclaimed promptly on
occupation.” This indicates the assumption of us policy-makers that whatever
they presumed to be ‘religion(s)’ had been suppressed in Japan and implied
the claim that those suppressed ‘religion(s)’ had to be liberated. The principle
of ‘freedom of religious worship’ was again expressed in the Potsdam
Declaration, issued on 26 July 1945 (National Diet Library 2003–2004b). The
notion of ‘religious freedom’ was presented as being of the utmost importance
for creating a democratic Japan. It states that the “democratic tendencies” of
post-war Japan were to be built by establishing liberal principles, including
“freedom of religion.”
After Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August 1945, these principles
were implemented, and the Japanese social system was reorganized accord-
ingly. Importantly, while the pre-war category of shūkyō was limited to the
‘three religions’ (i.e., Buddhism, Christianity, and sectarian Shinto), the post-
war category of shūkyō included various other faith groups, which would have
constituted the pre-war heterodoxy. The pre-war ‘pseudo religions’ and ‘evil
cults’ were included in shūkyō under the principle of ‘freedom of religious wor-
ship’. Other, newer groups that would have been excluded from the pre-war
category of shūkyō were also included in the post-war category.
At the same time, the pre-war secular was now also included in the post-war
category of shūkyō, after being reformulated as ‘Shrine Shinto’. After Japan’s
surrender, the first task of the Allied authorities was the demolition of the pre-
war Shinto secular. The so-called Shinto Directive (Translations and Official
270 Horii
Documents 1960), issued by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Power
(scap) on 15 December 1945, “effectively reduced Shinto to the status of a vol-
untary organization” (Mullins 2012: 66). This was achieved by reorganizing
Shinto as a ‘religion’. In more concrete terms, combined with the principle of
religion–state separation, the directive’s reclassification of Shinto as a ‘religion’
ended government financial support for and administration of Shinto shrines.
It also instructed the Japanese government to remove “Shinto elements”—
such as Shinto altars and the custom of compulsory shrine visits—from all
public institutions, including schools and public offices (Mullins 2012: 67).
Constitution, Religious Corporation, and Public Benefit

The foundation of a post-war category of religion—or shūkyō—was codified
by the new constitution, which was written under the Allied Occupation. scap
drafted the current constitution, which is still in use today. The Constitution of
Japan, which allegedly has “essentially American origins” as well as “clandes-
tine American influence” (Ward 1956: 1008), was promulgated in 1946 and
enacted in 1947. The constitutional notion of shūkyō is codified in Articles 20
and 89. As regards the sign of American influence in these, it is important to
point out that Article 89, as well as Article 20’s separation clause, did not
appear in the drafting process until scap submitted its February 1946 draft
(Inoue 1991). More specifically, Van Winkle argues (2012: 389) that “scap
inserted Articles 20 and 89 solely to eliminate Shintō as a source of ultra-
nationalism that could hinder pacification; scap had no concern in drafting
those provisions, whatsoever, for the ideals of religious freedom.” Article 20 of
the Constitution states:
Freedom of religion is guaranteed to all. 1) No religious organization shall

receive any privileges from the State, nor exercise any political authority.
2) No person shall be compelled to take part in any religious acts, celebra-
tion, rite or practice. 3) The State and its organs shall refrain from reli-
gious education or any other religious activity.
Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet, no date
Article 89 of the Constitution states:
No public money or other property shall be expended or appropriated for

the use, benefit or maintenance of any religious institution or associa-
tion, or for any charitable, educational or benevolent enterprises not
under the control of public authority.
the prime minister of japan and his cabinet, no date
The constitution distinguishes “religious organizations” (shūkyō dantai),

“religious acts” (shūkyō jō no kōi), “religious education” (shūkyō kyōiku), and
“religious activities” (shūkyō katsudō) from ostensibly non-religious secular
organizations, acts, education, and activities. This constructs the categories of
the “non-religious” (hi-shūkyō) or the “secular” (sezoku) while reifying “reli-
gion” (shūkyō) as something essentially distinguishable from these.
Importantly, what is constitutionally considered shūkyō, as distinguish-
able from the non-religious secular, is highly ambiguous. For this reason, this
new codification of shūkyō was not necessarily welcomed by those who were
categorized as shūkyō. In many cases, it was very confusing or even threaten-
ing for them. As Woodard (1972) reports, for example, when the Diet ratified
the Constitution, the Religions League of Japan (Nihon Shūkyō Renmei),
representing leaders from the three pre-war official religions, expressed dis-
satisfaction with Articles 20 and 89. The Religions League of Japan then pre-
pared itself, under the guidance of scap’s Civil Information and Educational
Section (cie), for the end of the Occupation and the impending autonomous
Japanese parliamentary power. The League was joined by organizations
newly qualified as part of the expanded category of post-war religion:
namely, by the Association of Shinto Shrines (Jinja Honchō), representing
Shrine Shinto, in 1946, and the Union of New Religious Organizations of
Japan (Nihon Shin Shūkyō Dantai Rengō Kai), representing the so-called ‘New
Religions’, in 1950. The result was the Religious Corporation Law of 1951
(shūkyō hōjin hō).
The Religious Corporation Law had one specific purpose: “to enable reli-
gious organizations to acquire legal capacity” (Woodard 1972: 98). The law
“allows religions to incorporate, giving them a legal right to own property and
business enterprises” (Hardacre 2003: 138). By constituting shūkyō as a legally
certified organizational category, organized ‘religion’ became legally codified
as something essentially different from other kinds of organizations, therefore
claiming an independent ontology in the public realm. Nevertheless, the post-
war freedom given to the legal entity of shūkyō is not limitless. Religious corpo-
rations have continued to be classified under the pre-war category of kōeki
corporations, according to Article 34 of the Civil Code in 1896, which has con-
tinued to be in effect throughout the post-war period. As for the post-war legal
status of organized religion, Hardacre (2003: 136) notes: “Religious organiza-
tions were recognized as working for the ‘public good’ (kōeki).” When ‘religious’
organizations are expected to be kōeki, it might indicate the subordinated sta-
tus of this category to the state. The expressed norm in the name of kōeki is that
whatever is defined as shūkyō is expected to serve the state, by being ‘good’ for
the public.
272 Horii
The coexistence of the two concepts of shūkyō and kōeki can be difficult.
The law defines the organizational purpose of a religious corporation, in a
rather circular way, as “to propagate religious teachings, perform rituals, and
teach and foster a following” (Amemiya 1998: 75). An implicit notion here is
that the ‘religious’ corporation is to propagate apparently ‘religious’ teaching.
This kind of circularity does not at all clarify what kind of distinctive quality is
meant by ‘religious’. Nevertheless, these ostensibly ‘religious’ activities are also
expected to support the so-called ‘public good’. Importantly, since the year
2000, the Public Benefit Corporation Law (kōeki hōjin hō) has been revised and
was subsequently reformed at the end of 2008. In this process, the concept of
kōeki was further scrutinized by the government. This forced many religious
corporations and ecumenical bodies—such as the Japanese Buddhist
Federation—to reflect on their kōeki status in relation to their ‘religious’ activi-
ties (Shimazono 2004a; Tanaka 2004; Ishimura 2005).
There have been widespread concerns—for example, among Buddhist
priests—that the most common activities carried out by priests, such as funer-
als, memorial services, graveyard management, and faith healing, might not be
defined as kōeki. While some claim that the daily prayer they offer to the
Buddha ultimately benefits the public, a significant majority interpret the
notion of kōeki more instrumentally, as practical benefit for society in general
or for many unspecified individuals (Rinshō Bukkyō Kenkyūjo 2009). This
understanding has been translated into various ‘socially engaged’ activities,
and the emergence of socially engaged Buddhist temples and priests is widely
celebrated by academics and other commentators (e.g., Ueda 2004; Rinshō
Bukkyō Kenkyūjo 2009; Inaba and Sakurai 2009; Takahashi 2009; Akita 2009),
even while this trend may paradoxically force temples to become divorced
from the aforementioned organizational purpose of legally certified religious
corporations (Horii 2012).
Contested Boundaries
What qualifies religious corporations’ activities to be distinctively and self-
evidently ‘religious’ is highly arbitrary and contentious in relation to other
ostensibly non-religious secular categories. For example, religious corpora-
tions must make the clear distinction between ‘religious’ and ‘commercial’
regarding the nature of activities they carry out. This is because of the tax
exemption on their income from ‘religious’—and therefore, by definition,
kōeki—activities. Religious corporations can be engaged in ‘commercial’ activ-
ities to a limited extent in supporting their aforementioned ‘religious’ organi-
zational purposes. Importantly, the distinction between ‘religious’ and
‘commercial’ is often disputed—for example, when Buddhist temples perform
funerals, burials, and memorial services for dead pet animals (e.g., Miki 2004;
Ito 2009; Asatsuma 2006). Tax authorities have not been consistent on such
issues. In the case highlighted by Miki (2004) and Ito (2009), the court recog-
nized the storage facilities for the ashes of dead pets in a Buddhist temple as
‘religious’ and the basis on which the temple has been practicing pet burial for
some centuries as the center of a local belief. Conversely, the court pointed out
that the pet-related services carried out by this temple were ‘commercial’
because the temple had published price lists for these services (Asatsuma
2006). This indicates that ‘religion’ as a concept is unclear in the eyes of public
authorities. The demarcation between ‘religious’ and ‘commercial’ is the prod-
uct of a complex process of negotiations between different parties, which
often requires the involvement of juridical authorities.
Another kind of dispute occurs over the religion–politics separation. This is
particularly the case with the Komeitō (Clean Government Party), the party
founded by the religious corporation of Soka Gakkai in 1964. Amongst many
controversies surrounding this party, what is most relevant for the sake of this
argument is the ‘religious’ association the party carries into the realm of osten-
sibly ‘secular’ politics. Unlike other political parties, Komeitō’s association with
a well-known religious corporation has repeatedly made the party vulnerable to
accusations of breaching the constitutional principle of the separation of reli-
gion and politics (e.g., Klein 2012; McLaughlin 2012; Baffelli 2011; Metraux 1999).
In 1993, for example, when a multi-party coalition succeeded in unseating
the Liberal Democratic Party (ldp) from their uninterrupted thirty-eight-year
rule, Komeitō was part of the coalition and was “soon identified as a major
target for attacks by the ldp” (Klein 2012: 82). Komeitō was characterized as
Soka Gakkai’s alter ego, and its inclusion in the coalition was interpreted as an
attempt by Soka Gakkai to take over Japan, despite official claims of the insti-
tutional separation between the two. ldp politicians opposed Komeitō’s pres-
ence in politics on constitutional grounds, as a breach of the separation
between religion and the state, and the March 1995 Tokyo subway attack by
Aum Shinrikyō fuelled the ongoing anti-Soka Gakkai/Komeitō smear cam-
paign (McLaughlin 2012). Nevertheless, soon after the ldp lost the 1998 upper
house election, it approached Komeitō leaders, seeking areas of common
interest for a potential political partnership (Metraux 1999). In 1999, Komeitō
became part of the ruling coalition, which also included the ldp and the
Liberal Party. Since the Liberal Party merged with the Democratic Party of
Japan in 2003, Komeitō alone has been “key to the success of the ldp” (Baffelli
2011: 225).
These controversies over Komeitō represent the hegemony of the non-
religious secular. Once a specific value orientation and its organizational form
274 Horii
are classified as ‘religion’, in exchange for constitutional freedom and legal

privilege, it is difficult, if not impossible, for its followers to enter the realm of
‘secular’ politics in an organized way, without wearing the badge of ‘religion’.
Although the Komeitō has been a key ally for the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party for many years, its association with ‘religion’ has always followed the
party like a shadow. For those who see the world through the lens of the reli-
gious–secular dichotomy, it cannot be seen as a ‘proper’ political party because
it brings the shadow of ‘religion’ into the realm of non-religious secular poli-
tics. It provokes the sense of “pollution” (Douglas 1966) in the minds of the
public and of politicians as well as academics—who share a belief in the sepa-
ration of religion and politics—because they perceive that Komeitō trans-
gresses the sacred boundary between ‘religion’ and ‘secular’ politics.
The next distinction to be made is between religion and the state. The con-
stitution codifies ‘religion’ as an entity that is somehow distinguishable from
the state. However, this constitutional separation has not been clear-cut. For
example, whereas Article 20 (3) prohibits the government from directly engag-
ing in “religious activity,” it is constitutionally acceptable for public schools to
offer “religious programs as extracurricular activities, as long as the school did
not restrict itself to one religion” (Van Winkle 2012: 390–91). This is because, in
the constitutional separation of religion and state, it has generally been inter-
preted that “government actors may support religion, as long as they do not
deny other religions an opportunity to work with the state as well” (Van Winkle
2012: 391). The current mainstream interpretation implicitly assumes that ‘reli-
gion’, or something ostensibly ‘religious’, is an ontologically independent entity
essentially distinguishable from the ‘secular’. This then allows the state to
sponsor so-called religious activities (as distinguishable from ‘secular’ activi-
ties), as long as the state-sponsored activities do not aim at preaching or prop-
agating a particular ‘religion’ (as opposed to ostensibly ‘secular’ value
orientations) or have the effect of assisting, encouraging, or promoting a par-
ticular ‘religion’ (O’Brian and Ohkoshi 1996).
The boundary is even more ambiguous and contentious in the case of state
sponsorship of Shinto ceremonies. In 1977, for example, “the Supreme Court
affirmed the constitutionality of the Tsu city authorities’ donation of funds for
the performance of a Shintō groundbreaking ceremony (jichinsai) prior to the
erection of some public buildings” (Yumiyama 2007). This conclusion was
drawn on the basis that “the ceremony aimed neither at propagating Shintoism
nor at interfering with other religions” (O’Brien and Ohkoshi 1996: 87).
Additionally, the court noted, “the ceremony had a secular purpose in confor-
mity with traditional folkways” (O’Brien and Ohkoshi 1996: 87). In deciding
whether the Shinto ceremony qualified as religious, the criteria for the court’s
decision were highly arbitrary—namely “the generally accepted social idea”

and the “general public’s judgment.” This leads us to ask an important ques-
tion: What governs these criteria? The full examination of this issue would be
beyond the scope of this chapter. What can be relevantly said here, however, is
that these criteria constitute a vague notion of social consensus, which can be
critically translated as the dominant ideology. The study of assumptions and
beliefs that govern the demarcating criteria of the religion–state boundary
could be an important subject for further critical investigation.
Throughout the post-war period, many individuals and groups have turned
to the courts for the enforcement of the constitutional provision for the dises-
tablishment of the state’s support for ‘religion’. According to O’Brien and
Ohkoshi (1996: viii), such litigation “represents three separate yet interwoven
undercurrents of social conflict—conflict over militarism, the revival of gov-
ernmental support for Yasukuni and the emperor system, and demands for
human rights.” Their study indicates that the discourse of ‘religion’—more spe-
cifically, of ‘religious freedom’—has been deployed as a resource by these citi-
zens in their legal battles against the state.
Among these, the Yasukuni Shrine is probably the most illustrative example.
The precursor to the Yasukuni Shrine was the Tokyo Shōkonsha, which was
established in 1869 to commemorate the dead soldiers of the Boshin War
(1867–1868), which brought about the Meiji Restoration in 1868. Following the
creation of Japan’s modern army, it came to venerate men who died fighting for
the Empire of Japan. The vast majority of the Yasukuni war dead are the fallen
from the Pacific War. The shrine was maintained by the Army and Navy
Ministry until 1946, when the Shinto Directive divorced the shine from the
state. Thereafter, the Yasukuni Shrine has been a religious corporation, which
is entrusted with the nation’s war dead.
The various issues surrounding Yasukuni “can hardly be understood in
state–religion terms” (Breen 2011: 278). In other words, we should not ask
whether activities involving Yasukuni are essentially ‘religious’ or not. Rather,
what can be more meaningfully examined is the ideological function of the
term ‘religion’ in the discourse surrounding Yasukuni. Politicians’ visits to
Yasukuni, for example, have been a controversial issue throughout the post-
war period in the light of the constitutional principle of the state–religion
separation (Takizawa 1988; Shibuichi 2005). On one hand, the discourse of
Yasukuni as ‘religion’ often functions to delegitimize the violence associated
with the pre-war Japanese state, while it tacitly authorizes and naturalizes the
post-war Japanese state as the non-religious secular one. When violence and
sacrifice in warfare become associated with the ‘religion’ of the pre-war
Japanese government, the souls of dead soldiers are represented as victims of
276 Horii
brainwashing by the state cult, and those of military officials are represented as
‘war criminals’ who were responsible for such fanaticism. On the other hand,
many wish to (re)unite Yasukuni with the realm of the non-religious secular—
for example, in the form of ‘official visits’ by the prime minister and the
emperor, and in claiming the constitutionality of such activities. This can be
seen as an effort to redefine Yasukuni as a symbol of the Japanese nation and
visiting Yasukuni as a patriotic act of paying respect to those who sacrificed
their lives to lay the foundation upon which the present Japanese state has
been built. Such discourse claims the ‘secularity’ of Yasukuni and subtly legiti-
mizes the pre-war state government as a non-religious secular one and its mili-
tarism as part of a ‘rational’ strategy to fight for national survival amidst the
international power struggle during that particular historical time. Thus, this
type of discourse is likely to upset those who suffered from pre-war Japanese
state violence. In my view, what Yasukuni represents is the pre-war Japanese
state. What is at stake here is the meaning of Japan’s state violence and human
suffering prior to 1945.
What Do the Japanese Mean by ‘Religion’?
This chapter has so far argued that the notion of ‘religion’ (shūkyō) in Japan is
utilized with specific norms and imperatives. Importantly, the meaning of ‘reli-
gion’ is entangled with the legitimacy of the power exercised by the Japanese
state. In other words, any form of boundary-making between religion and the
non-religion secular serves specific purposes and interests. Thus, this chapter
claims that the religious–secular dichotomy is ideological in the sense that it
functions to naturalize a specific configuration of power. Nevertheless, there is
a drawback to the discussion so far; it results from over-reliance on historical
documents. These texts mainly represent the thinking of the literate elite and
exclude the ordinary language of the non-elite. Therefore, it appears that a very
simple but important question still remains ambiguous: What do ordinary
Japanese people mean when they use the term shūkyō? This question has not
been seriously considered by academics who study ‘Japanese religion’, and it
should be addressed before concluding this chapter. In my view, this indicates
important implications for further research.
Existing surveys on ‘Japanese religion’ do not tell us what ordinary Japanese
people mean by the term shūkyō. These studies project a particular notion or
category of religion upon questionnaires, so that ‘Japanese religion’ becomes
reified within a predetermined conceptual framework, which does not reflect
what respondents might mean by ‘religion’ in another context.
According to the 2010 World Values Survey, when Japanese people were
asked, “Do you have any religion? Please select one from the following,”2 53.3
percent selected the box “None” and 36.6 percent selected “Buddhism” (World
Values Survey 2014: 70). The questionnaire provides a list of ‘religions’, which
consists of: “No religion,” “A Christian religion (Roman Catholicism),” “A
Christian religion (Protestantism),” “A Christian religion (other than the above),”
“Judaism,” “A Muslim religion,” “Hinduism,” “Buddhism,” “Other religion (spec-
ify: ),” “Don’t know” (World Values Survey 2010b: 19). Interestingly, there is no
option for Shinto. It seems to be the case that only “None” and “Buddhist” are
relevant boxes for most Japanese respondents. Another survey in 2008 (Nishi
2009) asked the question, “Do you believe in any religion?” This was followed by
options consisting of “Buddhism,” “Shinto,” “Protestantism,” “Catholicism,”
“Judaism,” “Orthodox,” “Islam,” “Other,” and “No Belief in Religion.” 49.4 percent
of respondents indicated “No Belief in Religion,” while 34 percent identified
their ‘beliefs’ (shinkō) in “Buddhism,” and only 2.7 percent indicated “Shinto”
(Nishi 2009: 66). Compared with Buddhism, Shinto seems to be much less likely
to be self-ascribed by the people in terms of ‘religion’ (shūkyō).
These international surveys project upon Japan a particular notion of ‘reli-
gion’, based upon which the ‘religious’ landscape of Japan is constructed and
imagined. Importantly, however, this kind of reification of ‘Japanese religion’
does not correspond to what ordinary Japanese people themselves mean by
shūkyō in their social interactions. This creates some questions, which need to be
addressed. For example, when various social practices associated with Buddhist
institutions are likely to be seen as ‘non-religious’ by the Japanese, what does the
self-identification of ‘Buddhism’ mean in the context of these ‘religion’ ques-
tions? What these surveys indicate is only a very limited part of what these
respondents could mean by shūkyō. In these surveys, the content of the term
‘religion’ has already been predetermined in the form of the choices following
the question. Therefore, it tells us very little about what the term ‘religion’ means
to Japanese people when they speak the word in their everyday lives.
In their co-authored book, Reader and Tanabe (1998: 5) state that the
Japanese concept of shūkyō is “imbued with multiple meanings and historical
2 This is my own translation of the Japanese question. The English translation of the original
Japanese question reads: “Do you currently practice any religion? Please select one response
only from the following list” (World Values Survey 2010b: 19), whereas the same question in
the English language in the published result states: “Do you belong to a religion or religious
denomination? If yes, which one?” (World Values Survey 2014: 70). In the actual Japanese
questionnaire (World Values Survey 2010a: 17), the meaning and nuances of the question in
Japanese appear to be different from these English versions.
278 Horii
accretions that provoke different interpretations and suggest different and fre-
quently elastic meanings to different people in different contexts.” A number
of scholars of Japanese religion, including Reader and Tanabe, have noticed
that Japanese people often use the term in a particular way, although this has
almost always been at the periphery of their studies of so-called Japanese reli-
gion. For example, Reader had already noted this point in one of his works on
Japanese religion some years prior to the above quotation:
In fact many Japanese people I have talked to about hatsumode [the New
Year’s visit to shines and temples] hardly consider it a religious festival at
all, and are reluctant to view their participation in religious terms […]
Again, many Japanese state that this [o-bon, and visiting the graves of the
ancestors at this time] is a cultural and social event, revolving around
family obligations and tradition.
Reader 1991: 11
Furthermore, Dorman (2007) states that, in the context of popular discourse,

the practice of divination and the element of ‘ancestor worship’ are referred to
as ‘non-religious’. His study deals with how a particular person with a large
following distances herself from the term ‘religion’. In this case, ancestor-
related activities are portrayed as ‘non-religious’, partly because the concept of
‘religion’ has been tarnished by Aum Shinrikyō, whose leaders were found
responsible for the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack in 1995. It is also noted that
the more general identification of ancestor-related activities as ‘non-religious’
is not necessarily related to the impact of Aum Shinrikyō, but is nevertheless a
very common description of these kinds of social practices. Davis (1992: 234–
35), for example, comments that the “feelings [of ‘revering one’s ancestors’ and
‘filial piety’]—which one naturally associates with ‘ancestor worship’—seem
to be divorced from ‘religion’ (shūkyō) by the Japanese.”
In the popular discourse on shūkyō in Japan, what ordinary Japanese people
generally mean by shūkyō tends to be confined to what Ama (2005: 3) calls
“revealed religion,” whose examples “include Christianity, Buddhism, Islam,
and Japanese new religions, which are revealed through texts, preached by cer-
tain people, and managed by profitable organizations,” while associations with
other forms of beliefs and practices, which are also referred to as religion or
shūkyō by scholars, are generally described as ‘non-religious’. It also has to be
pointed out that the term shūkyō has more specific associations with the prac-
tices and philosophies of so-called New Religions, whose general image was
very poor for most of the post-war period and was worsened with the Aum
Shinrikyo affair in the 1990s (Hardacre 2003). It seems that the term shūkyō in
this context carries a very similar nuance to the pre-war concept of ‘pseudo
religions’ (ruiji shūkyō) and ‘evil cults’ (jakyō).
In a similar line of argument, Shimada (2009) claims that most Japanese
people associate the term shūkyō with Christianity and Islam as well as the so-
called New Religions. The stereotypical image thus indicates that adherents to
these religions show their commitment in daily practices of their faith, includ-
ing participation in activities to propagate their beliefs to others. Thus, Reader
(1991: 14) explains, “In shūkyō and hence in the idea of ‘religion’ there is a hint
of something committing, restrictive and even intrusive.” For this reason,
according to Shimada (2009), the Japanese are likely to identify themselves as
‘non-religious’ (mushūkyō) when they are asked the question: ‘Do you believe
in any religion?’ In the words of Kawano (2005: 36), “The word [mushūkyō]
implies that a person does not belong to any religion that emphasizes personal
faith, such as Christianity or the so-called New Religions. Mushūkyō persons
often follow social convention by participating in life-cycle and calendrical
rites at Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples.” The claim to be mushūkyō could
be seen as an expression of the dominant ideology, to which the emphasis on
personal faith in Christianity and New Religions, for example, is fundamentally
alien. The social norm of mushūkyō symbolically eliminates shūkyō as a source
of conflict or “pollution” (Douglas 1966) from the structure of social relations
in order to maintain the existing social order.
In this context, many social practices—which are described as ‘religion’ by
scholars of Japanese religion, such as Reader and Tanabe—are unlikely to be
seen as shūkyō by the Japanese. More specifically, although Reader and Tanabe
(1998: 5–6) define religion as “a matter not only of doctrine and belief but of
participation, custom, ritual, action, practice, and belonging,” these are all
likely to be described by the majority of the population as ‘non-religious’, char-
acterized instead by terms such as ‘cultural’, ‘traditional’, and the like.
Of course, this does not eliminate the possibility that some ordinary
Japanese people share a very different understanding of the term shūkyō.
Those Japanese who participate in what is generally regarded as shūkyō in
Japan may see what is allegedly ‘non-religious’ in the Japanese context as
shūkyō. For example, Reader (1991: 17) illustrates this with the story of a young
female Soka Gakkai member who “gradually began to eschew” and eventually
stopped participating in activities such as “going to the shrine at New Year, tak-
ing part in festivals and praying to the kami for good luck” as her involvement
with Soka Gakkai grew deeper. First of all, in a particular popular Japanese
discursive framework of the term shūkyō, this young woman sees her affiliation
to Soka Gakkai as her shūkyō, with a positive nuance, while the majority
of Japanese categorize Soka Gakkai as shūkyō negatively. Importantly, her
280 Horii
identification of shūkyō has changed so as to include other activities generally

regarded as ‘non-religious’. This may reflect a particular way of conceptualizing
shūkyō in Soka Gakkai, in which Japanese society is seen as deeply ‘religious’ by
default, so that the social identity of Soka Gakkai as shūkyō can be discursively
normalized. In this way, she excluded what she now saw as ‘other religions’
from the activities of daily life, in which she had previously participated, in
order to maintain the purity of her own shūkyō.
Nonetheless, this kind of conceptualization of ‘religion’ is not necessarily
prevalent in other groups that have been socially regarded as shūkyō in con-
temporary Japan. Reader (1991: 13) gives us another story:
I once interviewed a young Japanese man who had converted to

Mormonism: what, I asked, did he do at o-bon? The answer, of course, was
that he went with his family to pray to the ancestors, satisfied that this
was a cultural and social action and thus did not conflict with his reli-
gious beliefs. He could take part as a member of the family at o-bon and
as a Japanese at hatsumōde without compromising his religious beliefs.
In the same vein, people who are “not religious” yet pray to the kami are
not contradictory.
What various studies of Japanese religion have indicated—but not discussed

extensively—is that the term shūkyō has been employed strategically at the
levels of everyday conversation among the Japanese. The demarcation almost
unconsciously drawn between shūkyō and the non-religious secular reflect
specific norms and imperatives shared by speakers as well as ideologies that
govern a specific discursive field. What can be investigated critically as a cen-
tral issue, rather than left on the periphery in academic discourse on Japanese
religion, is the ways in which the conceptual boundaries between ‘religion’ and
the non-religious secular are constructed and contested in ordinary people’s
everyday lives in Japanese society.
Conclusion and Implications for Further Research
This chapter began with a critique of the generic notion of religion in

Luhmann’s sociological discourse. Although Luhmannian systems theory
rightly indicates that the category of religion is an invention of Western moder-
nity, Luhmannian discourse on religion uncritically projects this specifically
modern, Western notion back onto premodern and non-Western social set-
tings, including Japan. This is because the Luhmannian approach to ‘religion’
embeds the belief in sui generis religion underneath its apparent critical
engagement with the notion of religion. In contrast, this chapter has boldly
highlighted that the category of shūkyō was first invented in Japan in the nine-
teenth century as the definitive translation of the generic notion of religion. It
has also emphasized that the discourse on shūkyō functions to naturalize the
authority of the Japanese state. The idea of shūkyō as a generic category was
conceptualized as some kind of interiority, which was essentially different
from the national ethos of the state. In pre-war Japan, the value orientations
and their institutional manifestations categorized as shūkyō were Buddhism,
Christianity, and sectarian Shinto. These institutions were utilized by the state
to disseminate the national ethos to the population. After the Second World
War, during the era of the Allied Occupation, the category of shūkyō was
expanded to include the pre-war national ethos of Shinto and those faith
groups that existed outside the pre-war category of shūkyō. Nevertheless, such
classifications do not necessarily reflect the colloquial usage the term shūkyō,
which carries a multiplicity of subtle nuances and meanings in relation to the
speakers’ norms and imperatives.
The fact that ‘religion’ questions can be asked at all in the aforementioned
international surveys, and the fact that people know how to respond, suggests
that ‘religion’ is not a meaningless term in Japan. As indicated in the last sec-
tion above, however, the complexity of what ordinary Japanese people mean
by the term shūkyō has only briefly been discussed in academic studies of
Japanese religion. Although these mentions of the colloquial meaning of
shūkyō are highly significant in their implications, these are no more than
speculative assertions through rather casual observations. Nevertheless, what
is certain is that we cannot assume that shūkyō in Japan denotes the same
aspect of human lives for everyone. The meanings and nuances of the term
vary between different individuals and within a diversity of social relations.
What these surveys and other related studies of ‘Japanese religion’ have rarely
indicated is what ordinary Japanese people mean by ‘religion’, the variety of its
meanings, and its functions in relation to the power structure of Japanese soci-
ety. What is urgently required now, therefore, is empirical research on and sys-
tematic analysis of norms and imperatives that govern specific meanings and
utilizations of the term ‘religion’. The diversity of conceptual boundaries
between religion and the non-religious secular needs to be mapped within
specific social settings where the discourse of religion occurs. Different mean-
ings of the term ‘religion’ should be analyzed in terms of their entanglements
with the power structure of society. In this light, the functions of the discourse
on religion can be examined critically. This will be the foundation upon which
the discursive study of Japanese ‘religion’ can be built.
282 Horii
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chapter 13
Whose Religion, What Freedom? Discursive

Constructions of Religion in the Work of un Special
Rapporteurs on the Freedom of Religion or Belief
Helge Årsheim
In this chapter, I seek to answer one, overarching question: What concepts of

religion have been applied by United Nations special rapporteurs on the free-
dom of religion or belief from the beginning of the mandate in 1986 to the
present (2014)? Unlike most scholarly engagement with the special rappor-
teurs, however, I will not seek to answer this question legally by examining the
scope of the internationally protected right to the freedom of religion or
belief—rather, I propose drawing on the theoretical and analytical perspec-
tives developed in the emerging, multi-disciplinary field of ‘Law and Religion’
to conduct an ‘epistemic discourse analysis’ (van Dijk 2011) of the ways in
which knowledge about religion is constructed, expressed, and distributed
within the discourse of the special rapporteurs. Following a general overview
of the academic study of religion and the location of law and religion within
that field of study, I will move on to an examination of legal discourse in
general, and of the special rapporteurs on the freedom of religion or belief
in particular.
Approaching Religion
The academic study of religion has probably never been more variegated
than at the present moment. Across the natural, social, medical, and human
sciences, religion—as well as concepts derivative of or related to that term—
is explored from a great variety of different disciplinary perspectives.
Cognitive scientists seek to trace the basic cognitive structure of thought and
behaviors that might be deemed religious (Barrett 2011: 232); sociologists
engage with the way religion functions, what it does for people, what people
do with it, and its social impacts (Bender et al. 2013: 12); sports researchers
investigate the interrelationship between religion and sports (Watson and
Parker 2013); while psychologists examine the influence of prayer on health
and quality of life (Olver 2013). Political scientists study the influence of

288 Årsheim
social structures and religious beliefs on jihadist suicide bombers (Perry and
Hasisi 2014: 72) and the particular conflict risks posed by the overlapping of
religious and other identities (Basedau, Pfeiffer, and Vullers 2014: 24); while
media researchers explore the ‘mediatization’ of religion, whereby religious
imaginations are rearticulated in the media, investigating the broader conse-
quences of this process for the secularization of culture and society (Hjarvard
2011: 120).
This wide-ranging academic interest in religion is paralleled by and inter-
twined with vibrant political, social, and legal debates on the nature, role, and
scope of religious traditions and doctrines, their institutions and organiza-
tions, and the number and behavioral inclinations of their adherents. Epochal
events that have propelled religion into the headlines of worldwide media out-
lets and to the top of the agenda of political and public discourse include the
Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991, the attacks by the Islamist terrorist network Al Qaida
on New York and the Pentagon in 2001 and their aftermath in the ‘Global War
on Terror’, the ‘cartoon crisis’ following the publication of caricatures of the
prophet Muhammad in numerous newspapers in 2005/2006, and the politi-
cal shifts in the Middle East under the ‘Arab Spring’ from 2010 onwards.
Such monumental occasions, paired with more gradual changes—such as
increased population movements driven by global economic instability and
inequality—have combined to create an insatiable academic, public, and gen-
eral interest in the multitude of phenomena and practices sorted under the
rubric of religion.
Following this flurry of interest in religion from virtually every quarter, the
work of scholars identifying themselves with the amorphous field of religious
studies1 has become correspondingly more complex. Founded on the borrow-
ing and juxtaposition of theoretical and methodological traditions from sur-
rounding disciplines, questions of multi-, inter-, or trans-disciplinarity have
been part and parcel of religious studies since its inception. Nevertheless, the
present moment seems to offer challenges of a different kind than only a few
1 There is no consensus on whether ‘religious studies’ constitutes a ‘discipline’, as maintained

by Stausberg and Engler (2011: 132), or merely a broad ‘field of study’, as observed by Segal
(2006: xiii–xvii). However, considering the strong theoretical backbone of this volume (see
the introduction), I contend that the lack of a unifying theoretical perspective since the
decline of the phenomenological school in religious studies (Flood 1999), combined with the
considerable rise in interest in religion from other fields of inquiry—at least for my purposes
in this chapter—require a conception of religious studies as a thematic field rather than a
coherent, unified discipline.
Whose Religion, What Freedom? 289
decades ago. Writing on the disciplines engaged in the study of comparative

religion, Eric J. Sharpe noted in his 1986 book on the topic that the most impor-
tant fields engaged in this enterprise included history, sociology, psychology,
phenomenology, and philosophy, each with their own methods and approaches
(1986: xiii). Ninian Smart, one of the more influential figures in the field in the
English-speaking world in recent decades, argued for a conception of religious
studies as unified by its subject matter but ‘polymethodic’ in its approaches,
combining the insights of linguistic, historical, and philosophical skills, paired
with methods drawn from psychology and the social sciences, in order to make
students aware of the experiential dimension of religion (Cunningham 2001:
325–326). By way of comparison, the edited volume on methods in religious
studies compiled by Michael Stausberg and Steven Engler in 2011 included
entries on everything from experiments, free-listing, and videography to spa-
tial methods and the role of visual culture, indicating a considerably broader
field of vision and inquiry than only a few years before (2011: vi–vii).
Despite this enlargement of the theoretical and methodological field of
vision covered by contemporary religious studies, Kocku von Stuckrad (2013: 6)
and Titus Hjelm (2011: 134) rightly observe a relatively low level of interest in
discourse analysis within the field. The lack of interest is surprising for two
reasons: first, discourse analysis is a very widespread approach, which has
become an important part of numerous academic disciplines, producing
important insights and landmark studies; second, discourse analysis seems
particularly apt for the present predicament of the field, with the ever-
increasing complexity and importance of religion to fields and disciplines well
beyond the confines of religious studies departments and research communi-
ties. The inherent flexibility of discursive approaches allows the numerous
theoretical and methodological concerns with the category of religion that
have traditionally dominated religious studies to be brought to bear on new
empirical fields, stimulating engagement with the theoretical and method-
ological traditions of other disciplines and areas of specialization.
In this chapter, I propose that such an engagement may be achieved by
applying discourse analysis conducted with the key questions of religious
studies in mind—i.e., the what, who, where, and when of the differentiation of
religion from non-religion2—to one of the many scholarly clusters where reli-
gion has been on the rise in recent years: the incipient, multidisciplinary field
2 This definition is inspired by Thomas Tweed’s assertion that scholars of religion are stuck
with the term religion because it fixes the ‘disciplinary horizon’ of the field, creating a role-
specific obligation for any scholar of religion to enter debates on how to define this constitu-
tive term (2006: 53).
290 Årsheim
of ‘Law and Religion’. Following a brief overview of this field in the next sec-
tion, I will spend the remainder of this chapter on an outline of the basic build-
ing blocks of a discourse analysis of law and religion, before applying these
basics to the discourse of religion developed by consecutive special rappor-
teurs on the freedom of religion or belief, appointed by the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights.3
The New Episteme Offered by Law and Religion
Following von Stuckrad, I contend that academic inquiry always takes place
within a more or less clearly defined field, structure, or episteme, which serves
to ‘ground’ knowledge and discourses, thus representing the condition of their
possibility (von Stuckrad 2010: 159). Over the course of the last few years, law
and religion has become a ‘hot topic’ (Vickers 2012: 197), to the extent that it
may constitute a separate field of knowledge, setting the terms of its own dis-
courses, thus making it an ideal topic for an ‘epistemic discourse analysis’—i.e.,
a closer examination of the ways in which knowledge is expressed, implied,
suppressed, and distributed within this new field (van Dijk 2011: 72). Tradi
tionally informed by the concerns of legal professionals increasingly faced
with the slippery category of religion, law and religion has grown over the
course of the past few decades to become a dynamic and important new topic
of inquiry, in which perspectives from numerous theoretical and methodologi-
cal approaches across the spectrum of social and humanist sciences have been
added incrementally.
If the core of religious studies is the obsession with the content, application,
and history of the phenomena and processes categorized as religious, law and
religion operates with a dual core, recognizing the twin concerns of laws on
religion (‘religion law’) and laws of religion (‘religious law’). These are two very
different yet strongly related theoretical, methodological, and empirical con-
cerns, the juxtaposition of which constitutes the sine qua non of the field
according to one of its key theorists in the uk, Russell Sandberg (2011: 6).4
3 Since 2006, the rapporteurs have been appointed by the successor to the Commission, the
Human Rights Council (see below).
4 The United Kingdom has been a particularly important arena for the development of a dis-
tinctive field of inquiry examining law and religion, due in no small part to the relatively late
incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights into the uk legal system via the
adoption of the Human Rights Act in 1998, creating an entirely new legal framework for the
protection of the freedom of religion or belief. In this development, the Law and Religion
Similarly, us scholars of law and religion, such as John Witte and James
Alexander, have called for the importance of a ‘binocular’ view of law and reli-
gion, under which the structural similarities and mutual influences of religious
traditions and legal systems on one another must be part and parcel of the
analysis of law and religion (2008: 1).
Hence, to the extent that scholars of law and religion follow these maxims,
they will find it hard to agree with von Stuckrad’s assessment of law as ‘more
innocent’ than religion as a topic of academic inquiry (2013: 5). Arguably,
few, if any, of the particular challenges listed by von Stuckrad for religious
studies—its role in scientific, political, and cultural debates over the last 250
years; its relation to theology and the experiential dimensions of religion; its
association with colonial agendas imposing Eurocentric views on non-Western
cultures; and the tendency towards essentialization in parts of the discipline—
can be neatly isolated from the mutual imbrications of law and religion. As a
linchpin in the theoretical and practical development of the modern, Western
nation-state—but also in the systematization, dissemination, and institution-
alization of ‘religion’—ideas and practices drawn from the myriad conceptions
characterized as ‘law’ cannot easily be separated from ‘religion’ without repre-
senting a distilled, essentialized version of either, a risk that I believe may be
expanded to virtually any phenomenon represented in discourse, as main-
tained by Hjelm (2011: 144).
To avoid such simplifications, scholars of law and religion have to take into
account what Lisbet Christoffersen has labeled the ‘intertwinement’ of law and
religion, or the realization that legal rules, both at the state level and the internal
level of religious organizations and the individuals and phenomena ruled by
them, cannot be seen as “either religious or secular, since religious and secular
norms seem to be relating to each other in an ever-shifting and ever-negotiated
balance” (2006: 120). This is a description with clear affinities to von Stuckrad’s
claim that discourse analysis in religious studies must necessarily reject the pos-
ited existence of religion as a sui generis phenomenon (2013: 16; see also Hjelm
2011: 143). While religion is clearly ‘intertwined’ with numerous other social
phenomena—such as culture, politics, or language—the importance of recog-
nizing ‘intertwinement’ seems to be particularly acute with respect to law,
Scholars Network (larsn) at Cardiff University has been an important player, with annual
meetings and an increasingly sophisticated database of religion-related cases. Other notable
developments in the uk include the establishment of the Oxford Journal of Law and Religion
in 2012 and the scholarly blog “Law & Religion uk—Issues of law and religion in the United
Kingdom—with occasional forays further afield,” emanating from scholars associated with
the larsn, also in 2012. See http://www.lawandreligionuk.com/ (accessed 14 January 2015).
292 Årsheim
which, particularly in late modern society, tends to take on the guise of the exact
opposite of ‘religion’, as the strictly rational instrument of technocratic gover-
nance and the meting out of justice according to ‘secular’ notions of fairness
and balance, captured in concepts like the ‘rule of law’ and ‘public order’, both
of which presuppose the legitimacy of the state’s authority to draw a line around
the proper space for religion in society (Agrama 2010: 504).
The division of law from religious authority has been a basic building block in
liberal legal and political theory, which has been concerned with the develop-
ment of discourses that eschew the influence of ‘comprehensive doctrines’, such
as religion, due to their inaccessibility to others (Rawls 1993). Only over the
course of the last decade or so has the inadequacy of this distinction been iden-
tified and discussed, as political scientists and legal scholars have been forced to
revisit their earlier refusal to recognize the complex interactions of law and reli-
gion; by now, it is becoming increasingly evident that marking off a ‘religious’
field by legal means is no innocent exercise, but rather one informed by specific
notions of key concepts such as law, religion, the secular, the state, and the
social. Above all, however, legal approaches to religion have tended to be
informed by a simplified version of the secularization thesis, as a curious anach-
ronism, underscoring the claims of law to be rational and secular (Sullivan, Yelle,
and Taussig-Rubbo 2011: 3; see also Horii in chapter twelve of this volume).
Fuelled by its image as the pure, legitimate authority in democratic societ-
ies, the legal domain has expanded exponentially over the course of the last
decades, as ever more fields have become subject to legal regulation locally,
regionally, and internationally. While these processes of ‘juridification’ are
complex and fraught with conceptual difficulties, I suggest that four of the five
dimensions of juridification identified by Lars Blichner and Anders Molander
(2008: 38–39) have added to the already entrenched intertwinement of law
and religion.5 First, juridification, understood as “a process where norms con-
stitutive for a political order are established or changed to the effect of adding
to the competencies of the legal system” (ibid.), has been ongoing, particularly
in Europe, for centuries, as the legal authority of religious organizations and
systems of law have gradually diminished and been curtailed by the rise of the
modern nation-state. These processes have affected the influence of religion
on constitutional and criminal systems of law, but in particular on family law,
which was formerly the exclusive province of religious legal authorities.
5 The fifth dimension identified by Blichner and Molander concerns “process[es] by which the
legal system and the legal profession get more power as contrasted with formal authority”
(2008: 39), a process they observe as ‘paradoxical’ and ‘elusive’, mostly concerning the role of
international courts, such as the European Court of Justice (2008: 46).
Second, juridification as “a process through which law comes to regulate an

increasing number of different activities” (ibid.) has decisively shaped the bor-
ders of religion, as most modern nation-states operate with systems for the
registration and recognition of religious organizations and communities in
order to attain legal personality, which is essential in order to conduct any of
the businesses commonly associated with religious communities, from the
establishment of places of worship and the training of leaders to the running
of schools and hospitals. Third, juridification as “a process whereby conflicts
increasingly are solved by or with reference to law” (ibid.) is evident, both in
the rapid increase in legal cases involving the limits of religious symbols and
practices in the public sphere and in the numerous cases in which courts of
law have to address the limits of the autonomy of religious institutions in
employment relations. Fourth, and as a result of the preceding processes,
juridification can be understood as a particular way of legal framing, “the pro-
cess by which people increasingly tend to think of themselves and others as
legal subjects” (ibid.), a process that is strongly in evidence among religious
communities that have a history of interaction with legal regulations, both
majority religions whose terms of interaction with state power have increas-
ingly become subject to legal regulations, but also minority religions that have
experienced bureaucratic hindrances and obstacles.
While these different dimensions of juridification are simplifications of
complex and interlinked processes, they serve a heuristic purpose in outlining
the numerous different sub-processes that come together to increase the scope
and impact of legislative power and domination, which ultimately leads to the
final—and perhaps most important—dimension of the process, whereby
people increasingly frame and understand themselves and others in legal
terms (Blichner and Molander 2008: 49). John Comaroff has observed how the
pervasiveness of this framing exercise on behalf of law has reached the point
where we live in a situation of “theo-legality,” in which the dominance of law,
resting in no small part on its differentiation from religion, is taking on proper-
ties and functions similar to that of the former power of religion (Comaroff
2009: 194–195). Law, in this reading, takes on almost millennial properties in its
capacity to ‘conjure up’ equitable politics and habitable societies and to secure
the foundations of moral, material, and mortal being (ibid.).
Making Religion, Making Law
Considering the above, I contend that discourse analysis in law and religion
must start with the recognition of the mutually reinforcing ties that relate law
294 Årsheim
to religion and religion to law. Unlike discourse analysis in religious studies

‘proper’, which requires the unsettling of the category of ‘religion’ as a sui
generis phenomenon (von Stuckrad 2013: 16), discourse analysis in law and reli-
gion requires a relational approach that is attentive to the reflexive encounter
between different forms of law and different forms of religion, in effect unset-
tling and denying the sui generis character of either. In material, practical
terms, this starting point requires an overview of the power differentials, inter-
pretative traditions, and modes of interaction between ‘law’ and ‘religion’ in
any given discourse prior to the analysis; examining the evolution of Western
law as an offshoot of the Protestant Reformation must start with a consider-
ation of the relations between the major political powers in pre- and post-
Reformation Europe, coupled with intimate knowledge of theological concepts
of law and legality and legal traditions of sacrality and religiosity, as well as an
overview of the arenas and channels of their interaction (cf. Berman 2004).
Likewise, examining the extensive debates and controversies surrounding the
scope and application of the religion clauses of the us Constitution requires
an acquaintance with historical as well as contemporary us American political
discourse on religion and religious liberty, an overview of the history of inter-
actions between different religious communities and the judiciary in the us,
and a thorough understanding of the arenas in which jurisprudence on the
religious clauses are principally fought (cf. Sullivan 2005).
These truncated examples illustrate why recognition of an intertwinement
of law and religion should be a basic building block in the analysis of how law
and religion interact in mutually constitutive ways. They also show the neces-
sity of a processual approach, in which the centrality of key terms and con-
cepts in discourse are displaced by an emphasis on the modes and mechanisms
of their discursive production. This processual approach has clear affinities
with the deontological, second-order maxims for discourse analysis presented
by von Stuckrad when he observes that the knowledge attained by employing
discourse analysis is not about ‘the world out there’, but rather about the tools
and mechanisms we deploy to describe that world, whose existence is obvi-
ously not denied (von Stuckrad 2013: 13).
Having identified the relevant field of discourse in which the production of
‘law’ and ‘religion’ takes place, an analysis of law and religion can go through
the simplified steps described by von Stuckrad for discourse analysis—i.e., the
determination of a research question, selecting data and building a corpus,
and choosing methods and providing analysis (von Stuckrad 2013: 18–20).
While I concur with Hjelm’s warnings against drawing overly strict distinc-
tions between the selection of research questions, data, and methodology
(Hjelm 2011: 142), I believe von Stuckrad’s approach is applicable as a heuristic
d elineation of the different steps of the analysis, all of which will obviously be
interwoven in the actual work behind and beyond the text (see also von
Stuckrad, Hjelm, and Wijsen’s respective chapters in this volume).
Research Question
While there is no room in this chapter for an extensive delineation of the mul-
titude of power differentials, interpretative traditions, and modes of interac-
tion between ‘law’ and ‘religion’ present in the discourse on the freedom of
religion or belief, von Stuckrad’s maxim that the first step of the analysis must
be the clarification of the research question is helpful as a narrowing principle.
In the remainder of this chapter, I will seek to provide some preliminary
answers to the following question: What concepts of religion have been applied
in the discourse on religion produced by United Nations special rapporteurs
on the freedom of religion or belief from the beginning of the mandate in 1986
to the present (2014)?
While this question is presented as an initial analytical step, it is drawn from
a recognition of the centrality of the work of special rapporteurs to the wider
discourse on the freedom of religion or belief and the promise this position
holds for eliciting finds of particular importance to the wider thematic field of
law and religion and beyond, particularly in the data produced by such rap-
porteurs. Situated within the complex institutional framework of the United
Nations, special rapporteurs on the freedom of religion or belief are part of the
‘special procedures’ of the Human Rights Council,6 the political body respon-
sible for the human rights work of the organization. The special procedures
were created by the Commission on Human Rights in the 1970s and 80s in
order to “monitor, analyze, and bring to public attention particularly egregious
cases of human rights violations” (Lauren 2007: 322). From modest beginnings
in the 1980s, when the Commission appointed the first three theme-based
special rapporteurs (Weissbrodt 1986: 685), the procedures have mushroomed
into a comprehensive and sophisticated system of working groups and rap-
porteurs monitoring a broad array of different rights categories.7 Special
6 The Human Rights Council was created in 2006 in order to replace the widely discredited
Commission on Human Rights (1948–2006). The main differences between the Commission
and the Council are that the latter has been promoted in the institutional hierarchy of the
organization, in contrast to the more subservient position of the Commission under the
Economic and Social Council (ecosoc), to a position directly below the General Assembly
(unga), and there is a new and improved system for the election of member states and
expanded meeting time (Lauren 2007: 335–336).
7 For a list of the current special procedures mandate holders, see http://www.ohchr.org/EN/
HRBodies/SP/Pages/Themes.aspx (accessed 22 January 2015).
296 Årsheim
r apporteurs on the freedom of religion or belief are principally given the task
of investigating governmental actions inconsistent with the rights set out in
the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination
Based on Religion or Belief (1981) and recommending measures to remedy any
such breaches (Evans 2006: 77).
Monitoring a legal instrument on intolerance and discrimination based on
religion or belief, special rapporteurs operate within a legal and political sphere
in which the borders between law and religion are clearly intertwined; unlike
other criteria for discrimination protected by international human rights
law—such as race, language, ethnicity, or sexual orientation—religion is first
and foremost viewed as an individual elective, significantly complicating the
determination and scope of protective measures, which are forced to rely on
more or less theologically infused hierarchies of protected beliefs. This view of
religion as primarily located in a “citadel of the mind” (Evans 2014: 4) has been
decisively shaped by the predominance of the strong protection offered for
‘religion or belief’ and the manifestations of such beliefs contained in the
authoritative legal instruments on religion at the international level: Article 18
of both the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (udhr, 1948) and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr, 1966). While the
erstwhile human rights framework offers limited protection to religion viewed
as identity in the minority clause in Article 27 of the iccpr, the legal concep-
tion of religion in international human rights law has been entirely dominated
by the individualist approach of Article 18 (Ghanea 2012).
The radical individualism in the legal concept of religion is not limited to
the international sphere, but can be traced to regional instruments like the
European Convention on Human Rights (1950), Article 9, and the American
Convention on Human Rights (1969), Article 12, both of which closely mirror
Article 18 of the iccpr. More truncated versions of the right are found in Article
8 of The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1986); The Arab
Charter on Human Rights (1990), Article 30; and the asean Declaration on
Human Rights (2012), Article 22. Numerous states have incorporated provi-
sions from these instruments more or less verbatim in their domestic legal
frameworks, securing a wide-reaching and profound impact on the conceptu-
alization and scope of the freedom of religion or belief on a global scale.
Importantly, while centered on the consciences of individuals, the interna-
tional legislation on the freedom of religion or belief is expansive and far-
reaching, stretching well beyond the confines of the doctrines of established
majority religions. The Human Rights Committee, as the authoritative moni-
toring body in the field, observed in its general comment on the interpretation
of ‘religion’ in Article 18 of the iccpr in 1993 that
Article 18 protects theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, as well as the

right not to profess any religion or belief. The terms “belief” and “religion”
are to be broadly construed. Article 18 is not limited in its application to
traditional religions or to religions and beliefs with institutional charac-
teristics or practices analogous to those of traditional religions. The
Committee therefore views with concern any tendency to discriminate
against any religion or belief for any reason, including the fact that they
are newly established, or represent religious minorities that may be the
subject of hostility on the part of a predominant religious community.8
Hence, the freedom of religion or belief does not rely principally on a determi-
nation of what constitutes ‘religion’, as all forms of belief are offered equal pro-
tection. However, once beliefs are translated from the inner sanctum of
personal convictions to outward “manifestations,” such as “worship, obser-
vance, practice and teaching,” they can be subject to limitations “prescribed by
law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health or morals, or the
fundamental rights and freedoms of others” (iccpr article 18.2 and 18.3).
Whereas beliefs are widely construed and effectively and practically beyond
the purview of legal regulations, manifestations inspired by such beliefs and
limitations on such manifestations are strictly circumscribed, requiring legal
actors to balance the scope of the freedom of religion or belief with other con-
cerns. While there is an extensive and vibrant legal literature on the specifics of
this balancing act,9 my main interest, drawn from the relational discursive
approach of law and religion, is in the ways in which legal actors construe the
relationship between protected beliefs, their manifestations, and their limita-
tions. At these intersections, law and religion become inherently intertwined,
as doctrinal and practical elements of religion or belief encounter the limits
prescribed by a self-proclaimed secular, orderly, and rational legal system. In
these encounters, legal actors tend to extend favors to dominant and well-
known forms of religion, either because they are considered to be “interwoven”
with the surrounding social fabric to the extent that they have become “cul-
tural” rather than “religious” features (Beaman 2012: 103), or because they more
readily make demands of their followers that can be summarized, hierarchized,
and assessed in courts of law (Sullivan 2005: 155).
8 un Human Rights Committee (hrc), ccpr General Comment No. 22: Article 18 (Freedom of
Thought, Conscience or Religion), 30 July 1993, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4, available at: http://
www.refworld.org/docid/453883fb22.html (accessed 29 January 2015).
9 Cf. Lerner 2012; Scolnicov 2010; Taylor 2005; Lindholm, Tahzib-Lie, and Durham 2004; and
Tahzib 1996.
298 Årsheim
Hence, while the mental content of ‘religion or belief’ is to be absolutely

protected and construed broadly, the limits on its transition into practical
actions necessarily rely on the resonance of such beliefs with surrounding,
dominant concepts of religions and beliefs in society, forcing an assessment of
the contents of the religion or belief in question. This process—whereby dom-
inant forms of religions and beliefs constitute templates against which other,
less prevalent forms are measured—bears a striking resemblance to the con-
tinuous and pervasive debate concerning the applicability of ‘religion’ as a
scholarly term, particularly due to its long-lasting and intimate relationship to
particular religious forms over others (cf. McCutcheon 2014; Stausberg 2010;
Tweed 2006; Fitzgerald 2000). Taken together, I contend that the ambiguities
concerning the legal scope of ‘religion’ merit an analysis of how special rap-
porteurs, appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to monitor
the freedom of religion or belief, approach and apply the term.
Data and Corpus

In the work of the special rapporteurs, the numerous ambiguities of the inter-
national discourse on the freedom of religion or belief are revisited continu-
ously as mandate-holders seek to interpret and apply the international legal
framework to domestic legal practices. Three different data sources chronicle
this work: published communications with governments concerning allega-
tions of violations of religious freedom; published reports from fact-finding
country visits by mandate-holders; and thematic, overarching reports dealing
with particularly troublesome issues. Throughout the mandate, these types of
data have evolved somewhat, from an earlier emphasis on communications
with governments towards increased country visits and annual thematic
reports summarizing complicated issues (Wiener 2007: 4–5).
The total output of the rapporteurs is considerable, and well beyond the
scope of this chapter.10 For the present analysis, I will therefore concentrate on
the annual reports submitted by special rapporteurs to the ecosoc and the
un General Assembly from 1986 to 2014, summarizing the activities of the
mandate-holder in the previous year. I will limit the corpus further by primar-
ily examining the final parts of these reports, where mandate-holders make
10 For a summary overview of the practice of the different mandate holders, see Rapporteur’s
Digest on Freedom of Religion or Belief—Excerpts of the Reports from 1986 to 2011 by the
Special Rapporteur on the Freedom of Religion or Belief Arranged by Topics of the Framework
for Communications (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights), available at
http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Religion/RapporteursDigestFreedomReligion
Belief.pdf (accessed January 29th 2015).
recommendations based on their activities. In these recommendations, I will

address the instances where rapporteurs explicitly discuss the nature of ‘reli-
gion’ in order to map the different approaches to the concept chosen by differ-
ent mandate-holders.
Method and Analysis

The third step in the tripartite division suggested by von Stuckrad, choosing a
method and providing analysis (von Stuckrad 2013: 20), has already begun with
the prior steps, as methodological and analytical considerations have been
heavily involved in the formulation of the research question and the determi-
nation of a corpus, both of which require a textual analysis of a scope suffi-
ciently focused to say something meaningful about the interaction of law and
religion in the discourse at hand, within a given timeframe. Nevertheless, the
division is useful because it forces a further reflection on the choice of method
and what kind of analysis might be provided by applying this particular
method. Furthermore, this exercise requires a consideration of what other
methods and analyses might have been viable, and why they have been
rejected. While numerous alternative methods and analyses might have been
imaginable, I will limit my considerations to three different approaches and
why they were not chosen for the present analysis.
First, the concepts of religion in the practice of the special rapporteurs
might have been explored using mixed methods to arrive at a more qualita-
tively informed analysis of how the data produced by the rapporteurs has been
assembled. Drawing on extensive textual analysis in combination with inter-
views with present and past rapporteurs, as well as organizations and individu-
als working with the rapporteur, such an analysis might provide some
preliminary answers, not only in terms of what concepts are applied, but also
why they are applied, to what end, and by whom.
Second, the concepts of religion in the practice of the special rapporteurs
might have been analyzed comparatively, utilizing external sources on the top-
ics handled by rapporteurs, ranging from the output of NGOs and academics
on the scope of religious freedom to the ways in which international and
domestic legal bodies deal with religion in their practice. Such a comparison
may have indicated the extent to which the discourse maintained by the rap-
porteurs on religion resonates with that of other monitoring bodies in the
same field, tracing similarities and differences, and measuring their influence
on one another.
Third, the concepts of religion in the practice of the special rapporteurs
might have been examined using a scalar analysis, tracing the textual, legal,
and practical trajectories of these concepts from the high echelons of the
300 Årsheim
s pecial rapporteurs and the un system, via regional and domestic institutions
and discourses, to the local and practical work performed by civil servants,
human rights activists, and individuals at ground level. This kind of analysis
could provide insights into the practical efficiency of international discourses
on human rights for people on the ground, in real-life situations.
While all of these alternative approaches would have produced additional
insights into the work of the special rapporteurs and its wider consequences
for the complex interrelationship of law and religion, they have been dis-
missed due to the constraints posed by their examination in a single chapter.
Additionally, however, I believe a focused, strictly textual analysis of one lim-
ited part of the rapporteurs’ output over time might serve as a useful mapping
exercise and may generate further research questions and inspire further,
more broadly conceived research efforts into the work of the rapporteurs
along the lines indicated above. As such, the following analysis may be
viewed as a pre-project, to be expanded and elaborated on a later occasion.
Throughout the analysis, I will draw on van Dijk’s notion of ‘epistemic dis-
course analysis’ by engaging the ways in which knowledge about religion is
expressed, implied, suppressed, and distributed by key actors within the dis-
course (van Dijk 2011: 35).
The Religions of Special Rapporteurs on the Freedom of

Religion or Belief
The work of the special rapporteurs can be subdivided into three distinct
phases, all of which offer different takes on religion and belief and the limits of
its acceptable manifestations. First, prior to the establishment of the present
procedure in 1986, two independent rapporteurs provided important analy-
ses of the scope of religion or belief, influencing the work of later mandate-
holders. Second, from 1986 to 2001, the mandate was restricted to the monitoring
of the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and
Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief. Third, from 2001 to the present, the
mandate has been expanded to cover the freedom of religion or belief more
generally—in particular, but not restricted to its protection in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (1966).
Antecedents to the Special Rapporteur

While the protection of religion at the international level has a long, turbulent
history that stretches back several centuries (Moyn 2014; Lindkvist 2013; Evans
1997; Neff 1977), two immediate precursors to the work of the mandate-holders
since 1986 have been of particular importance to the ways in which they have
approached the concept of religion. First, in 1960, special rapporteur Arcot
Krishnaswami submitted his Study of Discrimination in the Matter of Religious
Rights and Practices to the Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination
and Protection of Minorities, a subsidiary body of the Commission on Human
Rights, as part of a series of studies on different aspects of discrimination. The
immediate origin of these studies was the exclusion of minority rights from
the udhr in 1948, prompting delegates from the Soviet Union to insist on the
importance of creating a separate body tasked with the protection of minori-
ties, which had been the primary subjects of international human rights law in
the interwar years (Mazower 2004: 382).
In his study, Krishnswami observed at the very outset: “In view of the diffi-
culty of defining ‘religion’, the term ‘religion or belief’ is used in this study to
include, in addition to various theistic creeds, such other beliefs as agnosti-
cism, free thought, atheism and rationalism” (Krishnaswami 1960: 1). Despite
this broad-based assertion, the study is primarily dedicated to the various
interactions of states with a small handful of ‘world religions’—i.e., Buddhism,
Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, the latter intermittently subdi-
vided into Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and Catholicism. The study briefly sum-
marizes the history of legal regulations of religion or belief at domestic and
international levels before explicating the different dimensions of the freedom
of religion or belief protected by the udhr, providing numerous examples of
how states and world religions have interacted across the different dimensions
outlined in this right. Writing on the principle of equality, inherent in the free-
dom of religion or belief and in all other rights, the special rapporteur observed
that a “mechanical” application of the principle would raise “special problems”
with regard to religion, since each religion makes different demands on its fol-
lowers, which should be taken into account (Krishnaswami 1960: 15), thus
effectively requiring legal actors to discern and assess the different kinds of
demands made by different kinds of religions.
Concluding his study, Krishnaswami observed that it was “relatively easy to
analyse the situation in the world today,” which was characterized by
a more favourable trend towards equality of treatment of religions and

beliefs, and their followers, than in the recent past. There is also an
increasing recognition of the rights of those who do not hold a theistic
belief, like agnostics and atheists, in countries where the majority of the
population adhere to one or more religion.
KRISHNASWAMI 1960: 55
302 Årsheim
This change of affairs was due, in no small part, to “a change in attitude”

among a number of religions or beliefs, which were less inclined than in ear-
lier times to consider themselves to hold the only repositories of truth (ibid.).
Hence, while Krishnaswami embraced a broad concept of religion at the
beginning of his study, the brunt of his work chronicled the development of a
fairly narrow selection of ‘world religions’ towards increased acceptance of
other religions or beliefs, effectively attributing the tolerant attitudes he iden-
tified to internal changes within religious traditions. Furthermore, his earlier
observation on equality seems to suggest that the scope of the right to free-
dom of religion or belief should vary according to the demands of each reli-
gion, explicitly requiring legal actors to engage in comparisons between
different religions and beliefs. Krishnaswami’s study has been lauded as a
“classic work in an extremely delicate and controversial field” (van Boven
1991: 438), and its enunciation of 16 ‘basic rules’ for legislation on religion later
became the backbone of the 1981 Declaration, following a long and compli-
cated drafting process.
Almost three decades later, another special rapporteur, Elizabeth Odio
Benito, submitted her Study on the current dimensions of the problem of intoler-
ance and of discrimination on grounds of religion or belief (1986), which essen-
tially constituted an update of Krishnaswami’s work. Unlike Krishnaswami,
Benito provided a fully-fledged definition of religion. Although pointing out
that she had “refrained from attempting to define ‘religion’, since the meaning
of the word is generally well understood by all [sic!],” she immediately went on
to point out:
Nevertheless, it [is] perhaps useful to point out that “religion” can be

described as “an explanation of the meaning of life and how to live
accordingly.” Every religion has at least a creed, a code of action and a
cult. Further, she has avoided any attempt to describe or evaluate any
particular religion or belief or any religious institution. Where she has
used the term “Church,” it is not intended to refer to a particular religion
or belief but only to a stable and institutionalized organization or com-
munity of believers having an administration, a hierarchy, a fixed body of
beliefs and an established form of ritual.
E/CN.4/Sub.2/1987/26: para. 19, 1986
Where Krishnaswami’s study examined the long lines of history and outlined
general principles on overarching topics, the subject matter handled by Benito
relates to contemporary manifestations of intolerance and discrimination
resulting from extensive communications with states, ngos, and international
organizations, providing details of the different aspects of rights violations

around the world, albeit mostly in anonymized accounts.
Like Krishnaswami, Benito interrogated her examples and sought to iden-
tify the root causes of the present situation, which she primarily attributed to
“ignorance and a lack of understanding, conflicts in religiosity, exploitation
and abuse of religion or belief for questionable ends, developments of history,
social tensions, government bureaucracy and the absence of dialogue between
those holding different religions or beliefs” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1987/26: para. 164).
Among these causes, Benito contended that ignorance was “probably the most
prevalent cause” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1987/26: 167), although she also expressed her
concern about the “thousands of pseudo-religions which exploit or abuse free-
dom of religion or belief,” some of which allegedly “use weird ‘beliefs’ as a
façade to conceal illegal activities; others advocate the use of narcotics or the
abuse of chemicals or sex in order to attract new members” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/
1987/26: para. 175). Concluding her report, Benito recommended the adoption
of a binding convention to make the provisions of the 1981 Declaration enforce-
able, coupled with sustained efforts to implement the existing international
framework on religion or belief at the different organizational levels of the un
and in each member state (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1987/26: para. 205–263).
Taken together, the concepts of religion applied by these early rapporteurs
display the complexity and intertwinement of law and religion; although both
claim to adopt an expansive, broad-based conception of religion encompass-
ing virtually any form of coherent system of belief, both move on to character-
ize the relationships of specific religious traditions to legal regulations,
observing the necessity of discerning among the different demands these tra-
ditions make of their adherents, and, in the case of Benito, the necessity to be
vigilant against the harmful influence of ‘pseudo-religions’. Both rapporteurs
animate religious traditions with agency, as Krishnaswami attributes the
positive trends towards tolerance to changes within religions, while Benito
ascribes the worrying trends she observed to ignorance, a lack of dialogue, and
the ‘abuse’ of religious traditions.
Intolerance and Discrimination

Following the submission of Benito’s report in 1986, the Commission on
Human Rights appointed Angelo Vidal d’Almeida Ribeiro as special rapporteur
to provide further reporting on the implementation of the 1981 Declaration. In
his interpretation of the mandate given to him, Ribeiro observed that his task
was not one of determining the root causes of intolerance and discrimination,
but rather to draw up a list of the “contradictions” still in evidence between
existing legislative provisions in the area and the persistence in all areas of the
304 Årsheim
world of incidents and government actions inconsistent with these provisions

(E/CN.4/1987/35: para. 2). In this initial report (1987), Ribeiro examined infor-
mation received from more than 40 countries and a variety of sources, chroni-
cling the plight of a considerable number of different religious traditions well
beyond the confines of the world religions examined by Krishnaswami
(E/CN.4/1987/35: para. 28). Sorting the information according to three crite-
ria—factors hampering the implementation of the declaration, infringements
of the provisions of the declaration, and repercussions of such infringements
on other rights—Ribeiro outlined a variety of different causes and effects of
religious discrimination and intolerance, but without adopting any specific
delineation of ‘religion’, apparently settling for the categorizations offered in
the information submitted to him.
Over the course of the next six years, Ribeiro’s original mandate term of one
year was repeatedly renewed and eventually expanded to a three-year term.
Throughout this period, his main activity was documenting and systematizing
his reception and transmission of allegations of religious discrimination and
intolerance globally. The reports follow a common structure, whereby Ribeiro
reiterated the terms of his mandate and documented his activities—which
were gradually expanded to include country visits—before providing brief
comments on worldwide trends, their causes, and recommendations for their
rectification. As the reports repeatedly documented numerous and blatant
acts of discrimination and intolerance, Ribeiro observed in his third report
(1989) that his findings gave “no reason for optimism,” ascribing the numerous
infringements to the “extreme complexity” of the right (E/CN.4/1989/44: para.
101–102).
In his following report (1990), Ribeiro engaged the intertwinement of law
and religion head-on, as he observed that a large number of the incidents
brought to his attention concerned clashes between members of different reli-
gious communities, originating in “sectarian and intransigent attitudes”; in
some situations, “the intransigence of extremist elements and their demand
for a literal interpretation, without consideration of the context of certain reli-
gious practices, is at the root of many of the current manifestations of religious
conflicts in the world” (E/CN.4/1990/46: para. 103). In this way, the rapporteur
stressed the different demands made of believers within different religious tra-
ditions in much the same way as Krishnaswami did, although for entirely dif-
ferent reasons: whereas Krishnaswami emphasized the need to adapt the
interpretation of international provisions to differences within religious tradi-
tions, Ribeiro seemed to suggest that the very existence of different interpre-
tive strategies among and within religious traditions contributed to intolerance
and discrimination.
Later in the third report, Ribeiro observed the definitional problems with
religious discrimination and intolerance, particularly regarding the role of
sects and new religious movements:
The Special Rapporteur would like to emphasize that he is aware of the

difficulties involved in distinguishing between religions, sects and reli-
gious associations. In his view, aspects having to do with the antiquity of
a religion, its revealed character and the existence of a scripture, while
important, are not sufficient to make a distinction. Even belief in the exis-
tence of a Supreme Being, a particular ritual or a set of ethical and social
rules are not exclusive to religions but can also be found in political ide-
ologies. So far, a satisfactory and acceptable distinction has not been
arrived at. Given the rapid proliferation of religious associations, the lack
of a genuine distinction between religions, sects and religious associa-
tions sometimes poses serious problems. Experience has shown that
many newer sects and religious associations seem to engage in activities
which are not always of a legal nature. The Special Rapporteur believes
that, in the absence of an international convention which would be more
explicit in this regard, the Declaration is the best instrument at the dis-
posal of the international community allowing a distinction to be made
between the legal and illegal practices of sects and religious associations.
E/CN.4/1990/46: para. 110 [1990]
With this assertion, Ribeiro effectively dismissed the views on definition

expressed by Benito, both her assertion that the meaning of ‘religion’ is gener-
ally well understood and her later proposal for what the concept of religion
might contain. More importantly, however, Ribeiro’s observation also recog-
nized the inherent problem with the monitoring and implementation of a right
whose subjects appear to be beyond precise determination and definition.
In his consecutive report (1991), Ribeiro revisited the problem of distinguish-
ing between religions and their surroundings, observing that he found it diffi-
cult to differentiate between persecution on religious grounds and political
grounds as well as “persecution on the basis of religious activities and that to
which members of the clergy may be subjected as a result of the community
work performed in parallel with their purely religious functions” (E/CN.4/1991/56:
para. 96). In order to resolve these differentiations, Ribeiro transmitted allega-
tions of such persecution to the concerned governments, inviting them to “clar-
ify” the situation (ibid.), despite his later assertion that “very few countries make
a distinction between religions, sects and religious associations.” This lead to
several problems, particularly with “certain religious denominations” that did
306 Årsheim
not accept basic law (E/CN.4/1991/56: para. 100/102), further intimating a need
to discern between the doctrines maintained by different religious communi-
ties. In order to gain a better understanding of the problems with the differen-
tiation between religions, sects, and religious communities, Ribeiro prepared a
questionnaire for his sixth report (1992), in which he asked states to clarify how
this distinction was resolved in national legislation. In his analysis of the
received answers, the rapporteur concluded that most countries operated with
a “neutral stance” on the definitional question, although the question of sects
constituted an obvious problem in several states (E/CN.A/1992/52: para. 102/181).
After seven years of service as special rapporteur, Ribeiro resigned in 1993.
Early in 1994, his successor, Abdelfattah Amor, initiated his 11-year tenure with
his first report (E/CN.4/1994/79). Throughout his numerous reports, Amor dis-
played both similarities with and differences from the approach of his predeces-
sors. On the one hand, he shared Ribeiro’s worries about “dogmatic and secteric
attitudes” within some religious traditions leading to intolerance and discrimi-
nation (E/CN.4/1994/79: para. 101), recognized the challenges posed by distin-
guishing between religious and other forms of persecution (E/CN.4/1995/91:
146), and expressed his concerns with the definitional and regulatory challenges
posed by sects and new religious movements (E/CN.4/1995/91: 147–148). On the
other hand, whereas Ribeiro consistently recommended the adoption of a
legally binding convention to provide better protection against religious dis-
crimination and intolerance,11 Amor observed in his third report (1996) that
such a convention, while necessary, would be a “premature step” given the pres-
ent circumstances (E/CN.4/1996/95: para. 69). Furthermore, Amor interpreted
the scope of the mandate more broadly than Ribeiro had, not only as strictly
relating to the 1981 Declaration, but also covering the provisions on the freedom
of religion in the udhr and the iccpr (E/CN.4/1994/79: para. 101). Moreover,
Amor observed that all intolerance started “in the minds of men,” insisting that
education could contribute decisively to “instilling the values that focus on
human rights and on the emergence, among both individuals and groups, of
attitudes and behaviour exhibiting tolerance and non-discrimination and thus
participate in disseminating the culture of human rights” (E/CN.4/1994/79: para.
98), a view he maintained throughout his tenure.
In his fourth report, Amor elaborated on his view of what distinguishes reli-
gion from surrounding concepts as he addressed the relation between religion
and politics:
11 E/CN.4/1987/35: para. 96; E/CN.4/1988/45: para. 66; E/CN.4/1989/44: para. 104a; E/CN.4/
1990/46: para. 117; E/CN.4/1991/56: para. 107; E/CN.4/1992/52: para. 191; E/CN.4/1993/62:
para. 89.
Politics must remain independent and political, albeit sensitive to reli-

gion. Religion must remain independent and religious, albeit sensitive
toward the political sphere. The crucial point is always to strike a balance
that takes account of religion's cultural and sociological dimension with-
out lending itself to subordination, domination or subjugation; in rela-
tions with its citizens the State must, whatever happens, stand aloof from
ideology and religion, since citizenship of any kind implies and repre-
sents a relationship to a State, and to a State alone.
E/CN.4/1997/91: para. 89
Unlike Ribeiro, then, Amor seemed perfectly content to draw a distinctive line
between religion, which should be ‘religious’, and politics, which should be
‘political’.
Dovetailing with this clarification, Amor went on to discuss the distinction
between sects and religions, pointing out that, while the distinction between
sects and religions would be “too contrived to be acceptable,” a sect that “goes
beyond simple belief and appeals to a divinity or, at the very least, to the super-
natural, the transcendent, the absolute, or the sacred, enters into the religious
sphere and should enjoy the protection afforded to religions” (E/CN.4/1997/91:
para. 98), effectively shutting the door on sects lacking such doctrinal ele-
ments. By way of explaining the animosity towards sects in different countries,
Amor observed that this could largely be attributed to the “excesses, breaches
of public order and, on occasion, the crimes and despicable conduct engaged
in by certain groups and communities which trick themselves out in religion”
(E/CN.4/1997/91: para. 99). Revisiting the sect issue in his consecutive report
(1998), Amor stressed that, notwithstanding the open-ended approach to the
concept of religion favored by the Human Rights Committee in its General
Comment on the topic (see above), the lack of an agreed definition of religion
in international law “complicated” the issue, as terms like sect, religions, new
religious movements, and commercial enterprises were in need of further
clarification, which he suggested he might provide in a separate, thematic
study on the topic (E/CN.4/1998/6: para. 115–117).
Towards the end of his appointment, Amor started taking stock of his previ-
ous reports, summarizing his views and assessing their impact. Commenting
on the events of 11 September 2001, he observed that he had been reporting on
the global rise of extremism “attributed to religion” and the rising instrumental-
ization of religious freedom since his initial report in 1993, regretting that these
reports had not achieved the desired effects (E/CN.4/2002/73: para. 139).12
12 The report is only available in French, and the above is my own translation.
308 Årsheim
Further elaborating on the potential causes of this rise in extremism, he

observed in his tenth report (2003) that such acts were inspired by poverty,
injustice, and underdevelopment, and, as with discrimination against women,
were “pseudo-religious” in nature (E/CN.4/2003/66: para. 138/141). In order to
prevent further acts of extremism, Amor insisted on the importance of educa-
tion, but also, with particular reference to the 9/11 attacks, on the important role
of Muslim religious leaders in providing “information on the nature of Islam,
since Islamophobia thrives on others’ lack of knowledge. Greater exposure of
the Muslim authorities to the public at large will rob the Islam-terrorism equa-
tion of its potential for harm” (E/CN.4/2003/66: para. 145). In his final report
(2004), Amor expanded his explanations for the rise of religious extremism,
which “used” religion for purposes far removed from human rights, signalling
an “unexpected victory” for Islamophobia, which “desire[s] to confine Islam in
a pathological straitjacket and to make it the axis of evil ultimately lead[ing] to
conferring the stamp of legitimacy on forms of extremism for which Islam had
been a pretext rather than a cause” (E/CN.4/2004/63: para. 150/152).
Taken together, the views expressed in the reports submitted by Ribeiro and
Amor differ substantively on the nature of religion; although both recognized
the broad and inclusive nature of ‘religion or belief’ protected under the 1981
Declaration, Ribeiro was considerably less willing to elaborate on the exact
borders between religion and surrounding concepts than Amor, who drew dis-
tinctions between religions and sects, religion and politics, and religion and
‘pseudo-religion’. These different views on the nature of religion also gave rise
to different recommendations on the way forward; whereas Ribeiro advised a
more robust legal framework, Amor was mainly concerned with education, in
no small part to clarify misunderstandings about the exact borders between
religions and other concepts.
Religion or Belief
Although special rapporteur Amor declared from the outset that he consid-
ered the udhr and the iccpr to fall within the scope of his mandate, the title
of the mandate was not formally altered by the Commission on Human Rights
until 2001, on the 20th Anniversary of the 1981 Declaration (E/CN.4/
RES/2001/42). While the format of Amor’s reports did not change following the
adoption of the new title, the appointment of Asma Jahangir as his successor
in 2005 fundamentally altered the methodology and nature of reporting. In her
initial report, Jahangir set out a detailed plan for her execution of the mandate
and meticulously listed the international provisions which she interpreted as
part of the international regulatory framework on the area (E/CN.4/2005/61:
para. 14/17). Following an overview of her activities and her interpretation of
the most pressing issues relative to the mandate, including the role of religious
symbols and the relation of the mandate to the freedom of opinion and expres-
sion, Jahangir postulated that her activities would be “mainly devoted to its
protection aspect, which is the monitoring of cases and situations where [vio-
lations against the] freedom of religion or belief are allegedly committed”
(E/CN.4/2005/61: para. 73).
On the nature of religion and its relation to surrounding concepts in society,
the protective and legalist approach favored by Jahangir generally allowed her
to evade the issue by referring to the broad nature of the protections offered to
religion or belief in legal instruments and thus to refrain from the approaches
of her predecessors, whose observations on the nature of religion were fre-
quently related to preventive measures and assessments of the causes of intol-
erance and discrimination (see above). Addressing religious symbols in her
second report (2006), she echoed Krishaswami’s concerns with the different
demands made of believers by different religions, as she observed that whole-
sale bans against such symbols that did not take into account “the specific fea-
tures of religions or beliefs, e.g. a religion which prescribes wearing religious
dress” would constitute one of several potentially “aggravating indicators”
that could lead to incompatibility with the international legal framework
(E/CN.4/2006/5: para. 55).
In her third report (2007), Jahangir revisited the discussion on sects offered
by her predecessors, associating herself with their analysis of the complexity
of defining religion and belief but effectively evading the issue by extensively
citing the General Comment issued by the Human Rights Committee on the
topic in 1993 and stating that she approached the issue “in a broad sense”
(A/HRC/4/21: para. 46). Nevertheless, in her conclusion, Jahangir observed the
need to “depoliticize” issues related to religion or belief and reiterated that
“most situations of religious intolerance stem either from intolerance or from
misleading information” (A/HRC/4/21: para. 49–50), suggesting that she shared
some of Amor’s observations. However, in her fifth report (2009), commenting
on the gender dimensions of religious intolerance and discrimination, Jahangir
observed that
the previous mandate-holder argued that religions have not invented dis-
criminatory and harmful practices against women; rather, these practices
are mainly attributable to a cultural interpretation of religious precepts.
The concepts of culture and religion are, however, inextricably linked; it
is therefore difficult to dissociate religion from culture or customs and
traditions, since religion is itself a tradition.
A/HRC/10/8: para. 26
310 Årsheim
Despite this assertion, however, Jahangir went on to point out that religion is
“exploited for political ends” by authorities in many countries (A/HRC/10/8:
para. 57), begging the question of how religion may be more neatly separated
from politics than from culture.
In her sixth and final report (2009), Jahangir tackled the larger issue of how
religion might interact with surrounding issues, under the sub-heading
“Discrimination and violence in the name of religion or belief,” which is dis-
tinct from an earlier heading dealing with discrimination and violence on the
grounds of religion or belief, suggesting that “in the name of” and “on the
grounds of” were conceptually separate (A/HRC/13/40: 12/14). In her analysis,
Jahangir observed: “Discrimination and violence in the name of religion or
belief is at the heart of many conflicts which are—or are at least perceived to
be—based on religious issues, often intertwined with particular ethnic,
national, political or historical backgrounds” (A/HRC/13/40: para. 42). While
offering several examples of such intertwinements, she nevertheless refrained
from offering any potential method for their disentanglement, once more reit-
erating the broad nature of religion or belief under her interpretation of the
mandate (A/HRC/13/40: para. 47). In her concluding observations, Jahangir
stressed the obligations of states to prevent activities contravening human
rights, “even if such activities are seemingly based on religious or traditional
practices,” pointing out that practices like female genital mutilation were often
“wrongly associated with religion” (A/HRC/13/40: para. 58).
In 2010, the present (2014) special rapporteur, Heiner Bielefeldt, assumed
the post, submitting his initial report the same year. With this appointment,
the strongly legalist approach favored by Jahangir has been somewhat modi-
fied, as Bielefeldt has shown signs of returning to the more preventive
approach of Amor, particularly emphasizing the importance of education.
Unlike Amor, however, Bielefeldt has combined this emphasis with a more
explicit connection to the legal framework, in particular the relation between
the rights covered by the mandate and other fundamental rights. In his initial
report, Bielefeldt stressed the centrality of education not only in relation to
religion, but as an independent right in and of itself, to which the protection
of religion or belief related in different ways (A/HRC/16/53: para. 20).
Furthermore, Bielefeldt emphasized the necessity of educational approaches
that included “the crucial insight that religions—as a social reality—are not
monolithic; the same applies to non-religious belief systems […I]t follows
that they may also change over time” (A/HRC/16/53: para. 34–35); Bielefeldt
emphasized this understanding in order to avoid condemning individual
believers to become mere participants in a ‘faceless mass’, whose members
appear to be more or less interchangeable. In this way, Bielefeldt has nuanced
Krishnaswami and Jahangir’s calls for distinguishing between the differences
in demands made of believers in various religious traditions by arguing that

such demands may also vary within religious traditions and be subject to
change over time.
Additionally, Bielefeldt used the occasion of his initial report to introduce a
new term to the procedure, as he emphasized the “shocking degree of public
resentment” directed at “religion or belief minorities” (A/HRC/16/53: para. 29),
a designation not applied by any of his predecessors, despite their longstand-
ing and pervasive concern for the treatment of minorities; this is indicative of
a fairly uncompromisingly individualist approach to the subjects of the rights
covered by his mandate. This stance was further elaborated later on in the
report, as Bielefeldt stated that “the starting point must always be the self-
understanding of human beings, who are the only rights holders in the context
of human rights” (A/HRC/16/53: para. 39).
In his second report (2011), Bielefeldt reiterated his commitment to self-
understanding as the key starting point for the application of the freedom of
religion or belief, associating himself with his predecessors’ “broad approach”
to the range of beliefs that might be eligible for protection under this right (A/
HRC/19/60: para. 31–32). Unlike his predecessors, however, he abstained from
engagement with the thorny definitional issues surrounding the differences
between ‘sects’ and ‘religions’, limiting his observations to stressing the need to
temper limitations to the right to freedom of religion or belief by recourse to
sound empirical evidence and strict adherence to the limitations offered by
the legal framework (A/HRC/19/60: para. 35–37). In his third report (2012),
Bielefeldt examined the rights of minorities in particular, stressing:
While generally applying to different (ethnic, linguistic, etc.) categories

of identity, this principle of respecting every person’s self-understanding
is even more pronounced when it comes to defining religious or belief
identities, since the development of such identities relates to the human
right to freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief. […] Measures
used to promote the identity of a specific religious minority always pre-
suppose respect for the freedom of religion or belief of all of its members.
Thus, the question of how they wish to exercise their human rights
remains the personal decision of each individual. Strictly speaking, this
means that the State cannot “guarantee” the long-term development or
identity of a particular religious minority. Instead, what the State can and
should do is create favourable conditions for persons belonging to reli-
gious minorities to ensure that they can take their faith-related affairs in
their own hands in order to preserve and further develop their religious
community life and identity.
A/HRC/22/51: para. 23–24
312 Årsheim
While this passage seems to suggest that Bielefeldt is willing to sacrifice the
‘long-term survival’ of religious minorities if this survival might in any way be
detrimental to the freedom of religion or belief of each individual member, he
later stresses the importance of consulting with representatives of religious
minorities before enacting legislation at the risk of infringing on their “religion
or belief-related convictions and practices” (A/HRC/22/51: para. 29), effectively
recognizing a semblance of autonomy for such minorities.
Taken together, the approaches favored by Jahangir and Bielefeldt have
transformed the mandate and practices of the special rapporteur on the free-
dom of religion or belief, as these rapporteurs have distanced themselves
from the definitional wrangles of their predecessors, while simultaneously
connecting the mandate more clearly to its legal basis, which has also been
considerably expanded. The practice of dedicating ever-larger portions of
reporting to thematic analysis has also helped sharpen the focus of the rap-
porteurs, as they have been able to address issues that were earlier treated
more generally and in more abstract terms. However, these changes have
also rendered their work opaque when it comes to the exact scope of the
rights covered by the mandate; by evading the definitional issues tackled by
their predecessors, they have effectively distanced their approaches from the
very real dilemmas that riddle any practical application of the freedom of
religion or belief, in particular the complex differentiation of religious and
other types of intolerance and discrimination, the clarification of what
beliefs are covered by the right, and the nature of the rights enjoyed by reli-
gious minorities.
Conclusion
The discourse on religion among special rapporteurs on the freedom of reli-

gion or belief attests to the deep and entrenched intertwinement of law and
religion, as the concepts of religion deployed by rapporteurs repeatedly relate
to the shifting balance between dominant forms of religion in society. Writing
in the late 1950s, Arcot Krishnaswami seemed happily convinced that religious
differences, while posing certain problems, might comfortably be eradicated
by recourse to sensible dialogue and the general increase in knowledge and
educational levels in the world. In particular, this learning process would take
place within religious communities themselves, as they were increasingly
forced to deal with other religions in their surrounding contexts, removing the
need for the regulation of religion from the regulatory powers of state legisla-
tures in due course. To the rest of the rapporteurs, operating in the last four
decades, the nature, scope, and content of religions, as well as their relations to
laws and legal actors, have posed very different challenges, as new forms of
religions and different ways of being religious have entered into public
domains, challenging the regulations created and enforced by supposedly
secular legal systems whose grasp of the complexity of religion can be grossly
inadequate. While rapporteurs have handled these challenges quite differently,
their single common denominator seems to be their trust in education and
increased knowledge about religion and religiosity.
Whatever one might think about this trust, I believe the clear and unequivo-
cal calls from special rapporteurs for increased knowledge on religion should
be taken seriously by scholars of religion, whose role-specific duty is to con-
tribute to further knowledge and understanding of what religion has been, can
be, and might someday become. In this task, I believe that discursive studies of
religion provide a particularly fruitful approach, as they offer the possibility to
probe, unpack, and address the often implicit and hidden assumptions behind
the legal and political deployment of ‘religion’, both among decision-makers in
the legislature and the judiciary and also—as society undergoes multiple pro-
cesses of ‘juridification’—among the general public, who increasingly frame
their own experiences in legal terms (Blichner and Molander 2008: 38–39). In
particular, the recent call by Teun van Dijk to develop an ‘epistemic’ discourse
analysis seems promising for a more critical and culturally sensitive approach
that can unmask the ways in which the legal discourse on religion is involved
in the reproduction of power abuse and its social consequences (van Dijk 2011:
36). Findings from such critical analysis, moreover, should not be locked away
in our own scholarly circles, or in educational establishments, but should be
disseminated to the general public, and in particular to the legal system, whose
unhappy task it is to come to reasoned, fair, and well-informed decisions on
the nature of religion with very real, often crucial and decisive consequences
for the lives of people all over the world.
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PART 3
Response
∵
chapter 14
The Complex Discursivity of Religion

Reiner Keller
I am profoundly honored by the editors’ invitation to comment on this impres-

sive volume. Now, confronted with the task of composing my remarks, I must
admit to feeling somewhat uncomfortable and even out of my depth, because
the ideas presented here are stunningly convincing. Since the mid-1990s I have
worked mostly on general issues in social science discourse research, with a
strong focus on the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (skad) and
environmental discourses;1 I am not a specialist in religious discourse or reli-
gious studies (or sociology of religion, which is closely related). This means
that I am not in a position to discuss the historical and globe-spanning details
of the rich empirical contributions presented in this compendium to the
extent I would like, at least not in regard to the existing body of work on reli-
gion. However, it is plain to me that they show—quite convincingly—the use-
fulness of discursive approaches as a particular perspective on social (religious)
phenomena. Also, by reflecting on central problems—such as the question of
what exactly is labeled ‘religion’ by whom in different parts of the world—they
not only acknowledge the complexity of language use and discursive practices
in the fields they observe and analyze, but also make visible the reflexivity of
discourse research itself, which is a core component of ‘doing discourse
research’. The core question—e.g., that addressed by Adrian Hermann in
Chapter 5, Teemu Taira in Chapter 6, Kocku von Stuckrad in Chapter 9,
Mitsutoshi Horii in Chapter 12, and Helge Årsheim in Chapter 13—of how the
research area and concrete subject we are interested in (religion, politics,
sports, sciences, economy, arts, war, gender, postcolonialism, etc.) makes use
(or not) of the concepts discourse researchers are applying is fundamental.
Does it make sense to them? Do they use it? What is their understanding of the
phenomena we are looking for? No study can avoid reflecting on this. And
there is no simple answer—but there are good reasons for using a concept
foreign to the field itself (an old Foucauldian trick) or doing just the opposite:
not being trapped by one’s own pre-judgments.
As a discourse researcher myself, I find it fascinating that the present
authors, by virtue of concerning themselves with different research interests
1 See Keller 2013; 2011a; 2011b.

320 Keller
and phenomena, have so seamlessly become part of social science discourse

research as an interdisciplinary field of debate on procedures and findings,
using (and sometimes making significant contributions to) the very same the-
oretical lenses that are being used in other disciplines. In sharing these
perspectives—such as cda, new materialism/agential realism, practice theory,
or skad, among many others—it seems that entrenched divides between dif-
ferent academic fields of interest have once again become traversable. I would
therefore invite and even urge, if I may, the authors to participate in the more
general debate on discourse research taking place today, giving their account
of and going beyond the realm of studies in religion, in journals such as the
Journal for Discourse Research/Zeitschrift für Diskursforschung, Discourse &
Society, and others. I believe there is a real interest here in their take on general
issues as well as their empirical analyses. This holds true especially for the
more theoretical reflections presented in this book, which I would like to com-
ment on in the following paragraphs. It is my hope that my contribution will
not come across as a kind of sweeping, ‘ex-post’ critique (certainly this is not
the intention), but instead as an invitation to further discussion and debate
surrounding several points that concern the whole, heterogeneous arena of
discourse research across a growing number of academic disciplines.
I will begin by offering some general remarks that attempt to underscore
just how thoroughly religious studies, sociology, and discourse research are
intertwined—possibly without fully realizing it. Religion has definitely played
a major historical role in the emergence of sociology. Auguste Comte, who
invented the name of this new science in the first half of the nineteenth cen-
tury, conceived of sociology as a master science and a ‘positive philosophy’,
intended to guide social ‘order and progress’ and to overcome the discord
caused by the religious wars of his time (see Bourdeau 2014). Such a science
should be, according to Comte, a religion in itself—indeed, a ‘master religion’
to replace all ‘lesser’ religions—based on empirical knowledge. He even cre-
ated a church of positive philosophy (of order and progress), the Religion of
Humanity, which still has believers and temples in Brazil (where the national
flag bears his motto) and in France. While Marx and Engels considered religion
to be ‘opium of the people’ (their preferred narcotic to escape from reality, sub-
jugation, and a miserable life), Emile Durkheim, another founding father of
sociology, presented a rather different approach to religion a few decades later.
In his sociology of knowledge approach to the ‘elementary forms of religious
life’ (Durkheim 2008), he developed a comprehensive sociological and histori-
cal analysis of how ‘systems of representations’ (systèmes de représentations)
unfold. In contrast to Immanuel Kant, he conceived of all kinds of categories
and classifications (including ‘holy’, ‘profane’, ‘space’, ‘time’, and ‘causality’ or
The Complex Discursivity Of Religion 321
‘cause–effect’) as being social constructions; in his understanding, there was no

such thing as transcendental consciousness. He then focused on the relation-
ship between the social structures (group structures) of religious communities,
including non-Western tribes, and how they ordered and classified their world
through systems of symbols or through a coherent cosmology. According to
Durkheim, this logic of classification directly corresponds to the logic of social
structure. To give a simplified example: A tribe with five distinguished clans is
likely to ‘know’ not four cardinal directions, but five—one for each clan.
It is well known that Max Weber (2001) was also interested in questions of
religion. However, there is one important difference between his views and
Durkheim’s. Whereas Durkheim was interested in explaining how such classi-
fications emerge as an effect of social structures, Weber pointedly asked: What
are the consequences of religious worldviews and technologies of the self
within the world they populate? What are, at least at a particular moment in
European history, their effects on the dynamics of modern capitalism? His
answers are well known (and disputed).
It might seem strange to mention classic authors of sociology here, whose
research appears sorely outdated at first glance. However, there are reasons
for doing exactly that. As I suggested several years ago (e.g., Keller 2011b: 44),
Weber’s work on the Protestant ethic may well be the very first example of
discourse research in social science (and on religious discourses, no less!).
Weber analyzes a selection of documents from religious discourse (sermons,
religious guides, self-help or self-improvement literature), focusing especially
on the forms of life conduct or technologies of the self these documents
described, and combines this with an interpretation of their far-reaching social
consequences (as well as with observations based on tax statistics). It is there-
fore understandable that discourse research found common points of depar-
ture here, namely in the form of Foucault, who positioned his own work on
technologies of the self within the line of thinking established by Weber.
But why Durkheim? First, the reflections he introduced regarding the rela-
tionship between (religious/cosmological) systems of classification and (tribal)
social structures have been immensely successful. They are the direct precur-
sors of the work of the famous anthropologist Mary Douglas (who, not by
chance, first labeled the social structure behind environmental activism as a
‘sect’) as well as, in a somewhat modified version, of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociologi-
cal analysis of strong ties between classes and classifications. Second, and less
obvious, is the link between Durkheim and Michel Foucault. Interestingly,
the latter is known to have proposed, as a title for his Collège de France chair,
the denomination ‘history of systems of thought’ (histoire des systèmes de
pensée, Foucault 1981)—thereby using a concept very close to the ‘systems of
322 Keller
representations’ that had been established by Durkheim in his “Elementary

Forms of Religious Life”!2 Certainly, Foucault is much closer to Friedrich
Nietzsche and his claim for a historical, empirical, and knowledge-oriented
philosophy. He rarely refers to Durkheim, and not at all with regard to the con-
cept of ‘systems of representations’ or the problem of classifications, which is at
the very heart of The Order of Things as well as of “Elementary Forms.” There
could be many reasons for this. It could be due to Durkheim’s emphasis on
moral ties and solidarity; it could also be due to the rigorous overhaul and
realignment Foucault brings to the analysis of systems of thought and classifi-
cation, or to the fact that, at the end of the 1960s, ‘social’ or ‘collective represen-
tation’ had become a common concept in French social psychology. In contrast
to Durkheim (and, in a different way, Marx), who emphasizes the correspon-
dence between classification or worldview and social structure, Foucault con-
ceives of systems of thought and classifications as effects of a complex historical
constellation and formation, of what he called ‘causal de-multiplication’ and
‘discursive formations’. Such constellations can be ‘retrieved’ via genealogical
analysis and, close to Weber’s understanding, examined with an eye towards
their consequences or effects. Foucault is more Weberian than Durkheimian.
Durkheim, to an extent, represents what Paul Ricœur (1977) and, following him,
Hubert Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow (1983) called the ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’.
Such hermeneutics, represented in different ways by Karl Marx, Sigmund
Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Claude Lévi-Strauss, attempt to seek out deep-
rooted, underlying causal mechanisms that produce the surface of given phe-
nomena. But Foucault, for quite a long time, wanted his project to be about an
analytics of just the positively given surfaces (of discourse), declining to search
for these monocausal mechanics. Maybe we could describe this approach, with
reference to Weber, as what I have called a hermeneutics of constellations, which
is interested in complexity, assemblages, and effects (Keller 2015). This seems to
me the turn Foucault introduced into the analysis of systems of thought, via the
archaeology and genealogy of discursive and dispositive formations.
The field of discourse research provides room for both kinds of hermeneu-
tics. In my view, it is not principally about confronting these traditions or argu-
ing for one against the other (as has surely happened for decades now). Starting
from an interest in discourse, they merely follow different rationales and ask
different questions, the answers to which might complement, ignore, or contra-
dict each other. But all of this is input for discussion, and it does not exclude
asking questions about theoretical and methodological grounding or about cor-
responding methods of analysis—and certainly about outcomes and findings.
2 Both concepts have been translated into German as „Denksysteme.“

Given the contributions to the present volume, and in addition to the

extraordinary richness of the empirical work presented here, there are some
major strands of argument in line with more general and interdisciplinary
debates on discourse which are discussed: Critical discourse analytic appro
aches are looking for the social origin and function of religion in reproducing
(and maybe questioning?) power and domination. More knowledge-oriented
analytical approaches explore the conflicts and broader effects of discursive
construction of religious phenomena. Finally, the need for reflection on the
reflexivity of discourse research as well as on the limits of discourse analysis
and its possible transformation through new materialisms is argued.
Critical Discourse Analysis and Bourdieusian Habitusformationsanalyse, as
presented in this volume, are part of the hermeneutics of suspicion tradition.
What then is their general logic of research and explanation? A Bourdieusian
analysis (see Chapters 7 and 8) explains a particular religious worldview or
discourse adherence via the habitus of a social group or individual, combined
with the power- or dominance-related functions such worldviews serve in a
given field. It pinpoints how symbolic ordering is the product and servant of
a particular position in society. Critical Discourse Analysis (see Chapter 1)
nowadays—beginning with the writings of Norman Fairclough in the 1990s (or
in Germany somewhat differently, with Siegfried Jäger and the diss–team)—
presents a complex, interdisciplinary theoretical framework, based in linguis-
tics but enlarged by important contemporary sociological work. In the present
volume (Chapter 1), Titus Hjelm convincingly insists that it (like other perspec-
tives in discourse research) is not simply a method, but a methodology (or a
theory–methods package, as I would put it). As a general theory of discourse,
cda shares arguments with other approaches to discourse (e.g., skad) but
conceives of itself much more as a political intervention than as a genealogical
and interpretative analytics. Despite the broad theoretical arguments estab-
lished, in its empirical work, the focus of cda appears to be narrow. Maybe this
is why Hjelm writes about “how it could be used, rather than how it has been
used” (see page 16). It could be interesting to compare this statement to the
empirical work presented by Frans Wijsen in Chapter 10, which is situated in
cda (amongst other references). But are concepts such as ‘intertextuality’
indeed specific to cda? This might be due to my professional deformation, but
to me it seems that a classical sociological (or cultural studies) case analysis of
identity work via interviews would end up with the very same results. So what
is the particular contribution of cda here? More generally speaking, cda is
about unmasking the ideological function of language use by pointing to hid-
den capitalist and neoliberal interests—or general interests in domination—
below the surface of discourse. Chapter 11, by Marcus Moberg, presents a solid
324 Keller
statement on this, identifying ‘marketization’ as the suspect cause of discursive

change.3 Alternatively, cda discovers and points to the discriminatory effects
of racist, right-wing, anti-Semitic, conservative, sexist speech in whatever situ-
ation or manifestation of discourse. It implies an explicit emancipatory and
‘critical’ political commitment on the part of the analyst, which, via analysis,
might contribute to social sensibilities for language use, e.g., in mass media
reporting or office talk. This in itself, by the way, is no guarantee of emancipa-
tory or critical effects in society—and cda has no exclusive copyright on the
complex dynamics of critical work. Just consider the broad usage of Foucauldian
work, following a rather different rationale of critique.
skad, as referred to by Kocku von Stuckrad in Chapter 9, is not a method,
but rather a research program and theory–methods package. It seeks to under-
stand the discursive construction of reality—that is, complex social constella-
tions of power/knowledge production (or construction), knowledge circulation
and transformation via politics of knowledge, the multiple foundations and
arenas that surround these processes, and (by using the concepts of dispositif
or subjectification) the effects of discursive constructions.4 This is a very differ-
ent idea of why and how to do discourse research, situated in the Foucauldian
‘genealogy’ project and its version of critique: analyzing the ‘becoming’ of our
taken-for-granted realities and the ways in which these realities are opened up
or transformed in societies (including the effects of social sciences’ storytelling
about such realities).
I strongly disagree with the critique that skad argues “for the correspon-
dence between realism and constructionism” and promotes “representa-
tionalist assumptions”, as George Ioannides suggests in Chapter 3 (see page
59). This seems to be a deep misunderstanding, perhaps due to the confusion
around social constructivism and social constructionism in English-speaking
academia, which is already present in Karen Barad’s work. But Barad rather
talks about “sociology of scientific knowledge” and acknowledges herself to be
an “admitted social constructivist” (Barad 1996: 164), stating that “[t]the
observer does not have total agency over passive matter—not any representa-
tion of reality will do—since not any result one can think of is possible: the
world ‘kicks back’” (Barad 1996: 188). I referred to this old pragmatist idea
when arguing that the world appears as ‘resistance’ to meaning-making and
3 Once again, I would like to ask what makes this analysis a cda work. Is it the assumption that
it is the economy behind the surface of discourse? Some 35 years ago, Jürgen Habermas, in his
Theory of Communicative Action, made a more fundamental point on the “colonisation of the
life world” by economy as one of the potential damaging deformations of modern societies.
4 See the bibliography at the end of this chapter.
interpretation. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge

allows us to account for the existence of multiple, even contradicting “reali-
ties” (Berger & Luckmann 1966). Situated in the pragmatist tradition and in
Max Weber’s epistemology, the idea of discursive construction conceives of
discourse as a hypothesis for inquiry into particular realms of the social, which
shows its usefulness or lack thereof along a specific research trajectory. This
includes the Foucauldian insistence on ‘discourses as practices’ as well as his
notion of the dispositive—an assemblage of doings, sayings, actors, materiali-
ties, etc. Indeed, skad argues for a more complex integration of the elements
of dispositives into discourse research. In connection with the social construc-
tionist work of Berger and Luckmann, stating that a symbolic order must deal
with the ‘resistances of the world’ is not equivalent to saying that it is supposed
to represent reality ‘as it is’. skad is close to material semiotics, as presented by
John Law (2008). Karen Barad argues for a new relational ontology of becom-
ing, which again claims to discover the true reality of reality. This could be a
subject for discourse analytical research rather than the solid basis for new
perspectives in theorizing discourse.
Nevertheless, I agree with Ioannides and Jay Johnston (Chapter 4) that mate-
rialities are all too often neglected parts (or ‘silenced others’) in discourse
research, despite Foucault’s concept of the dispositive and his empirical work in
Discipline and Punish, and researchers should make more of an effort to account
for this. However, I wonder whether the new materialist turn or new agential
realism, as presented in Chapters 3 and 4, imply a deep need for fundamental
change in discourse research. The research interests linked to such claims in the
present volume—e.g., researching the role of intuition, ‘energy’, elements of
nature, and/or ritual practices—merely seem to belong to other domains of
study. Researchers might be interested in these issues and care about the role of
things accordingly. But is there a need to extend discourse research to such
aims? Does this imply a new epistemology for discourse research itself? What
would it look like then? Couldn’t we simply agree that there might be other
perspectives outside discourse research that address those questions? This cer-
tainly could and certainly will be an important point for further consideration,
as long as the material turn is not surpassed by a new spiritual turn (see the
reference to ‘intuition’ in Chapter 4, or Knudson 2015), which logically should be
the next ‘turn’ ahead—the latest in a winding series of turns. There is a lot of
“twist and shout going around,” as the American sociologist Adele Clarke put it.5
5 Adele Clarke, “A History of Qualitative Inquiry in the u.s. Post wwii, with Special Focus on
Grounded Theory and Situational Analysis.” Lecture at Ludwig Maximilian University,
Munich, 25 June 2015.
326 Keller
Highly different versions of such a ‘spiritual turn’ might be an object for fur-
ther research in discourse studies of religion. A first strand could be called the
participatory and politics of acknowledgement version, e.g., arguments in
favor of indigenous epistemologies or participation of religious worldviews in
scientific governance, etc. An opposite version is currently present in the mas-
sive return of violence claimed by religious fundamentalism. This is certainly
debated in the public sphere as well as in religious and social studies. But dis-
course research has not turned toward these phenomena and events, which
pose a series of important questions: Is there a stealthy but forceful, perhaps
even horrific return of violence legitimated by religious belief as a structuring
principle of discursive formations? What would a discourse analysis perspec-
tive on discourses that exist in religiously contextualized spaces—and by this
I mean not discourses about religion, but discourses in contexts deeply shaped
by religion—look like? What shape must researchers’ engagement with these
questions take when analyzing the discursive and practical violence that cer-
tain terrorist acts are introducing into the public realm in the name of a god?
How can we conceive of a discourse analysis that must assume as a valid,
extant standpoint positions that consider the life and death of critics of reli-
gion as openly negotiable?
I hope readers will pardon me for the more general tone of these concluding
remarks, but a deeper engagement with selected arguments is beyond the pur-
pose of this final chapter. This also holds true for the fascinating, rich empirical
analyses and reflections on the reflexivity of discourse research in this volume
(as mentioned in the beginning) and for dealing with the problem of using a
concept (such as religion/non-religion) for phenomena which, from their own
perspective, might ignore or even oppose such a category. Such an undertaking
is central to discourse theory and empirical analysis and is in no way exhausted
by the present book and related work. There are further debates to come.
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Garden City, NY: Anchor.
Bourdeau, Michel. 2014. “Auguste Comte.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Available at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/. Accessed 2 September 2015.
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Index
āgama 8, 117, 118, 228, 229, 233 Buitelaar, Marjo 226, 230
agential realism 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66, 68, Burma 116, 119
320, 325
Al Qaida 288 Cassidy, Joe 87, 88, 98, 90, 92
Alaimo, Stacy 64, 66, 69 Catholicism 113, 134, 193, 200, 229, 277, 301
alchemy 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 213, 214, Ceylon 117, 119
215, 221 Chapman, Mark David 137
Alexander, James 291 Chidester, David 132
Amor, Abdelfattah 306, 307, 308, 309, 310 China 6, 111, 112, 113, 115, 119, 126, 133, 134, 135
apocalypticism / apocalyptic 181, 194, Chinese medicine 89
198, 200 Christianity 98, 112, 114, 115, 117, 134, 138, 228,
apostles 196, 197, 198 229, 239, 265, 266, 267, 268, 278, 279,
apparatus 23, 24, 54, 61, 62, 65, 117 281, 301
Aristotelian 209 Christoffersen, Lisbet 291
Aristotle 26, 157, 177 Church of Denmark 246
Arminianism 199 Church of Sweden 250, 251
Arnal, William 130, 131, 132 civil service 242, 243, 245, 246, 249, 253
Asad, Talal 125, 132 classification 125, 133, 134, 135, 149, 150, 157,
Asia 99, 100, 106, 110, 111, 116, 118, 119 188, 260, 268, 269, 270, 281, 320, 321, 322
Aude, Sapere 210 Cognitive Dissonance Theory (cdt) 230
see also Westcott, Wynn W. cognitive science 232
Aum Shinrikyo 273, 278 Comaroff, John 293
Communism 134
Bakhtin, Mikhail 1, 230 comprehensive doctrines 292
Barad, Karen 51, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, Confucianism 6, 114, 115, 126, 133, 134, 135,
66, 67, 68, 69, 91, 324, 325 136, 139, 141, 142, 229
Barcan, Ruth 77, 78, 79, 89 constructionism 58, 59, 63; see also social
Barthes, Roland 139 constructionism/constructivism
Beckford, James 20. 22, 125, 140, 261 consumerism 239, 240, 247
Benavides, Gustavo 55, 56, 57 cosmology 115, 263, 321
Benito, Elizabeth Odio 302, 303, 305 Critical Discourse Analysis (cda) 2, 3, 4, 8,
Bennett, Jane 66, 81, 82, 91, 92 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 56,
Berger, Peter L. 16, 19, 23, 27, 59, 225, 325 127, 128, 135, 148, 149, 151, 164, 200, 219,
Bergson, Henri 82, 93, 211 226, 228, 229, 230, 232, 235, 244, 320,
Bible 181, 197 323, 324
Bielefeldt, Heiner 310, 311, 312 Critical Discursive Study of Religion (cdsr)
binarization 60, 61 15, 16, 18, 19, 30
Blichner, Lars 292, 293, 313 Crookes, Sir William 210
Blumenberg, Hans 44, 45 customer orientation 243, 245, 246, 249, 253
Bourdieu, Pierre 6, 7, 21, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151,
152, 153, 154, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 165, Dalton, John 207, 209
166, 167, 175, 176, 177, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, danger 3, 4, 36, 38, 39, 46, 47
190, 191, 196, 197, 199, 200, 228, 321, 323 Davy, Humphry 207
Buddhism 98, 100, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, Deleuze, Gilles 66, 82
118, 119, 134, 266, 267, 268, 272, 277, 281 Denmark 246
Kenmitsu 266 see also Church of Denmark
330 Index
Dialogical Self Theory (dst) 8, 226, 230, esotericism/esoteric traditions 77, 80, 81, 84,
232, 235 88, 91, 191, 215, 217
Dijk, Teun van 23, 74, 75, 232, 244, 287, 290, essentialization 291
300, 313 Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland
Discordianism 126 134, 239, 247, 251
discourse: passim exorcism 183, 185, 195, 198
marketization of: see marketization extrasensory 80
technologization of: see technologization
discourse analysis 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, Fairclough, Norman 8, 16, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25,
20, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 36, 37, 43, 51, 55, 27, 28, 29, 52, 53, 53, 55, 56, 59, 69, 127, 128,
56, 57, 59, 60, 68, 74, 76, 80, 87, 92, 93, 129, 133, 135, 148, 149, 163, 164, 165, 166,
127, 132, 142, 148, 149, 151, 152, 159, 164, 225, 228, 229, 230, 232, 235, 240 241, 242,
165, 200, 203, 205, 206, 216, 219, 220, 226, 243, 244, 246, 247, 251, 252, 253, 255, 323
240, 244, 248, 256, 288, 290, 291, 293, Fechner, Gustav Theodor 212
294, 313, 319, 320, 321, 323, 324, 325, 326 Fick, Monika 212
see also Critical Discourse Analysis Finland 28, 29, 134, 140, 141
discourse communities 214 Fitzgerald, Timothy 97, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132,
discourse strands 210, 211, 213 261, 262, 298
discursive practice 2, 4, 22, 27, 36, 51, 53, 54, folk church 8, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 249,
56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 91, 254, 255
107, 108, 113, 127, 128, 142, 153, 216, 219, Foucault, Michel 1, 5, 15, 16, 20, 21, 27, 43, 44,
228, 230, 231, 240, 241, 243, 244, 251, 253, 52, 54, 61, 62, 63, 69, 74, 104, 107, 108,
256, 319 109, 119, 127, 128, 129, 132, 139, 200, 204,
discursive study of religion 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 15, 217, 221, 321, 322
16, 18, 30, 51, 52, 55, 56, 97, 102, 103, 127, freedom of religion and belief 9, 114, 115, 165,
129, 216, 217 267, 268, 269, 270, 287, 290, 295, 296, 297,
discursivization 220 298, 300, 301, 302, 303, 306, 309, 311, 312
dispositive (dispositif ) 4, 54, 62, 200, 204, in Japan 265, 267
207, 216, 322, 324, 325 Freud, Sigmund 212, 322
distinctions (of religion) see religion, Froste, Samantha 58, 66, 81
distinctions of Funke, Christian 217
dōtoku 268
dreams 213, 214 Gaia 215
Driesch, Hans 211 Garling, Stephanie 3, 4, 262
Druidry 139 genealogy 5, 7, 107, 204, 216, 218, 322, 324
Dubuisson, Daniel 132 Gieser, Suzanne 213, 214, 230, 232, 235
Durkheim, Emile 17, 153, 186, 320, 321, 322 global discourse (of religion) see religion,
Dutch East Indies 7, 8, 225, 226, 228, 234 global discourse of
Goldenberg, Naomi 261
Eliade, Mircea 215 Granholm, Kennet 15, 56, 58, 69, 245
Engler, Steven 19, 20, 25, 288, 289 Grohmann, Adolf 85
Enochian 214 Guatemala 7, 147, 156, 179, 180, 182, 185, 186,
Enryō, Inoue 115 189, 190, 192, 193, 195, 198, 199
epistemology 21, 58, 60, 61, 69, 75, 79, 90, 325 Guattari, Félix 66
epistemic discourse analysis 74, 92, 232, 287,
290, 300, 313 habitus 149, 150, 151, 152, 154, 156, 157, 158,
epochal event 288 159, 160, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 175,
equivalents (of religion) see religion, 176, 177, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 193, 194,
equivalents of 196, 198, 200, 323
Index 331
HabitusAnalysis 2, 6, 148, 152, 159, 175, 176, Japanese religion 8, 261, 269, 272, 276, 277,
179, 180, 182, 200, 323 278, 279, 280, 281
Hahnemann, Samuel 207 Jediism 6, 126, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142
Harrison, Peter 109 Johnston, Jay 4, 5, 53, 81, 85, 88, 89, 217, 218, 325
Harvey, Graham 67, 68, 69, 82 Juergensmeyer, Mark 147, 152, 200
hegemony 15, 19, 21, 22, 29, 119, 260, 266, 273 Jung, Carl Gustav 213, 214
Henry, William 207 juridification 292, 293, 313
Hermans, Hubert 226, 230, 232, 235
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn 210 Keller, Reiner 2, 9, 59, 69, 203, 205, 207, 219,
historicization 102, 130 321, 322
Holy Spirit 182, 183, 184, 185, 196, 199 Ketelaar, James 115, 116, 265, 266, 267
Horii, Mitsutoshi 8, 47, 98, 109, 115, 116, 155, Kippenberg, Hans G. 2, 97, 98, 205
217, 272, 292, 319 knowledge (alternative) 79, 93, 218
human rights 4, 275, 295, 296, 300, 301, 306, see also sociology of knowledge
308, 309, 310, 311 kōeki 271, 272, 368
Hurgronje, Christian Snouck 229 Kollmar-Paulenz, Karénina 99, 100, 101
Komeitō 273, 274
iconography 86 Kopimism, the Missionary Church of 126
idée-force 165, 167, 195 Krishnaswami, Arcot 301, 302, 303, 304, 310, 31
identity 7, 8, 46, 116, 127, 134, 140, 154, 155, Kulturwissenschaft 205
158, 166, 176, 178, 179, 181, 183, 185, 195,
225, 226, 228, 230, 231, 232, 234, 252, 253, Laclau, Ernesto 54, 102
280, 296, 311, 323 Latour, Bruno 66, 75, 219
ideology 3, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 29, 30, 56, 82, 127, Le Bon, Gustave 207
128, 212, 215, 219, 239, 265, 269, 275, 279, 307 Legge, James 133, 142
immigration/immigrants 7, 8, 137, 225, 226, Lennon, John 137
228, 231, 234, 235 Lincoln, Bruce 2, 6, 127, 129, 130, 131
Indonesia 7, 8, 134, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, Lockyer, Sir Norman 208, 209
232, 233, 234 Luckmann, Thomas 16, 27, 59, 155, 225, 325
instrumentalization 252, 307 Luhmann, Niklas 3, 4, 36, 37, 38, 39, 43, 44,
integration 7, 8, 135, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 46, 47, 262, 263, 280
230, 231, 234, 235
interdiscursivity 27, 225 magic/magical 4, 22, 75, 76, 77, 80, 84, 85, 86,
intersubjectivity 5, 76, 84 87, 91, 93, 109, 110, 175, 200, 206, 214, 215
intertextuality 27, 228, 230, 323 Malafouris, Lambros 92
intra-action 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 68 market-logic 239, 242, 255
Ioannides, George 4, 66, 76, 81, 217, 324, 325 marketization 8, 241, 242, 243, 245, 248, 253,
Islam 8. 24, 26, 28, 113, 116, 134, 219, 225, 254, 255, 256, 324
226, 227, 228, 229, 232, 233, 234, 235, Marx, Karl 3, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 153,
277, 278, 279, 301, 308 157, 186, 187, 219, 320, 322
see also Muslim Marxism 16, 17, 18, 19, 23
Islamic law 229 Marxist school 3, 15, 16, 17, 18, 30, 219
Islamophobia 308 Masuzawa, Tomoko 118, 132, 261
materiality 4, 51, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65,
Jahangir, Asma 308, 309, 310, 312 66, 67, 68, 69, 75, 76, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88,
Japan 8, 97, 98, 110, 112, 114, 115, 116, 119, 260, 91, 92, 93, 218, 325
261, 262, 263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 269, 270, matter 4, 35, 51, 52, 53, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63,
271, 273, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 87,
post-war Japan 260, 269, 270, 271, 275, 278 88, 91, 92, 93, 207, 209, 210, 213, 215, 324
332 Index
Matthes, Joachim 109, 110 pancasila 229

McCutcheon, Russell T. 20, 97, 102, 127, 130, Pastafarianism 126
131, 132, 261, 262, 298 Pauli, Wolfgang 212, 213, 214
media 16, 18, 24, 29, 54, 75, 126, 128, 135, 137, Pentecostal 7, 147, 155, 156, 164, 179, 180, 181,
138, 139, 140, 141, 167, 200, 219, 227, 239, 182, 185, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 196,
245, 247, 248, 254, 288, 342 197, 200
Meiji government 264, 265, 266, 267, 275 Neopentecostals 24, 179, 180, 183, 184,
meishin / mixin 110, 112, 113, 114 185, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198,
metaphysics 7, 208, 212 199, 200
methodology 16, 40, 51, 83, 161, 294, 308, 323 performative discursivity 58
Mills, Sara 2, 128, 139 Perry, Matthew C. 265, 288
ministración 196, 198 phenomenology 92, 127, 289
Moberg, Marcus 2, 8, 15, 16, 53, 55, 56, 58, 97, Philosopher’s Stone, the 213, 214, 215
216, 244, 245 phrenology 206
modernity 99, 132, 212, 225, 226, 227, 234, physics 7, 58, 60, 63, 91, 149, 206, 207, 208,
239, 280 210, 211, 212, 214
modernization 203, 205, 225, 226, 227 political communication 3, 4, 35, 36, 38,
Molander, Anders 292, 293, 313 40, 42
monism 7, 57, 212, 280 polymethodic approach 289
Moufe, Chantal 54 postcolonialism / postcolonial studies 74,
Multiple Correspondence Analysis 188 127, 319
mushūkyō 279 posthumanist 64, 65, 68
Muslim 7, 22, 25, 26, 28, 134, 136, 137, 138, postmodernity / postmodernism 18, 19, 21
142, 219, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 231, poststructuralism 74
232, 233, 234, 235, 277, 308 Potter, Jonathan 20, 25, 55, 56, 57
see also Islam praxeology 6, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 158, 176,
181, 183
nature-based spiritualities 7, 215, 218 praxis 6, 7, 79, 147, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155,
nature-culture 65 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164,
neo-vitalism 211 165, 166, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 185,
neoliberalism 240, 249, 269 186, 187, 190, 191, 194, 195, 198, 199, 200
Netherlands, the 8, 226, 227, 228, 231, 233, premodernity 81, 82, 98, 99, 111, 112, 114, 117,
234, 264 118, 239, 262, 263, 264, 266, 280
New Age 7, 77, 78, 78, 89, 90 prima materia 207, 209, 210, 213
new materialism 51, 64, 65, 66, 80, 81, 83, Protestant Reformation 184, 294
320, 323 Prout, William 209, 210, 212
non-discursive 4, 53, 54, 56, 153 pseudo-science 206, 207
non-humans 81, 82 psyche 213, 214
Nongbri, Brent 97, 102, 110, 129 psychoanalysis 212, 214
Nordic Church 242, 243, 246, 250, 251, 252, psychology 7, 207, 208, 211, 211, 212, 213, 214,
253, 254, 255, 256 215, 289, 322
Nordic Countries 243, 244, 245, 249, 255 science and psychology 213
normalization 23, 41, 249, 252, 253
Rawls, John 292
ōbō/buppō 115, 263, 264 Regardie, Israel 214
Occidentalism 219 religion: passim
occult sciences 206 and law 9, 287, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294,
onto-epistemology 51, 58, 60, 61, 68, 69 295, 296, 297, 299, 300, 303, 304, 312
ontology 19, 58, 61, 84, 216, 266, 271, 325 and science 7, 52, 203, 216
Index 333
anthropology of 1, 9, 125 social constructionism/constructivism

distinctions of 5, 36, 37, 38, 104, 107, 110, 4, 21, 55, 63, 226, 324
111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 119, 263, 308 Social Identity Theory 230
equivalents of 5, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, social sciences 40, 218, 243, 289, 324
105, 106, 107, 109, 110, 111, 117, 118, 119, 263 sociology 1, 2, 6, 17, 18, 20, 55, 59, 147, 149,
global discourse of 5 ,97, 98, 99, 101, 103, 150, 157, 160, 165, 192, 203, 205, 206, 239,
104, 107, 109, 110, 111, 116, 118, 119 262, 289, 319, 320, 321, 324, 325
individualized 245 sociology of knowledge 2, 55, 59, 165,
pluralism, religious 109, 110, 203, 206, 319, 320, 325
post-institutional 245 sociology of religion 17, 18, 147, 192,
privatization of 242, 245 262, 319
religious change 240, 241, 243, 244, Soka Gakkai 273, 279, 280
245, 253 spiritual healing 24, 77, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90,
religious corporation 271, 272, 273 154, 218, 272
subjectivized 245 spiritual warfare 195, 197, 198
sui generis 20, 116, 262, 263, 281, 291, 294 Stausberg, Michael 288, 289, 298
representationalism 59, 61, 63, 65 structuralism 1, 21, 28, 57, 74, 76, 100, 166,
Ribeiro, Angelo Vidal d’Almeida 303, 304, 176, 264, 291
305, 306, 308 systems theory 36, 43, 44, 262, 280
risk 3, 4, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45,
46, 47, 177, 262 Taira, Teemu 6, 15, 52, 54, 56, 58, 69, 97, 126,
risk opportunities 46 127, 138, 139, 141, 155, 216, 217, 220, 261,
Romantic literature 139 264, 319
ruiji shūkyō/pseudo religion 268, 269, 279, Tarocco, Francesca 109, 111, 112, 113
303, 308 technologization 243, 249, 251, 253, 255
rules of formation 5, 104, 107, 108, 109, 110, 119 theo-legality 293
theodicy 163
Sandberg, Russell 290 Theosophical Society 78, 88, 210
sāsana 116, 117 Thomas Theorem 217
Schaefer, Heinrich Wilhelm 67, 208, 209, 210 Tilley, Christopher 83, 84
scientification of religion 7, 52, 205, 216 transcorporeality 66
secular 6, 7, 8, 9, 22, 29, 36, 77, 78, 82, 110, 116, transhistorical 105
131, 140, 155, 203, 204, 205, 225, 249, 260, transitivity 24, 25, 26
262, 263, 264, 265, 267, 268, 269, 271, translation 36, 85, 98, 99, 103, 104, 105, 106,
272, 273, 274, 275, 276, 280, 281, 291, 292, 107, 110, 112, 114, 116, 117, 191, 265, 267, 269
297, 313 translingual practice 5, 103, 104, 106, 107, 109,
secularism 155 110, 111, 114, 118, 119
secularization 35, 155, 203, 225, 288, 292
seken / shusseken 263 United Nations 9, 287, 290, 295, 298,
seriality 139, 220 300, 303
Shajikyoku 268 United Nations Commission on Human
Sharpe, Eric J. 289 Rights 9, 290, 295, 296, 297, 298, 301, 307,
shūkyō 8, 9, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 260, 261, 264, 308
265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272,
276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281 Vásquez, Manuel 56, 67, 69
signification 63, 64, 65, 81, 149 vitalism 7, 81, 82, 91, 211, 212, 215
signs 149, 153, 158, 180, 185, 220 von Stuckrad, Kocku 2, 4, 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 37,
Silberer, Herbert 213 52, 53, 54, 55, 58, 62, 69, 76, 77, 82, 97,
Smart, Ninian 289 98, 102, 103, 126, 127, 129, 133, 139, 142,
334 Index
148, 151, 153, 205, 206, 212, 217, 261, 289, Wijsen, Frans 2, 7, 15, 52, 54, 98, 225, 226,
290, 291, 294, 295, 299, 319, 324 231, 295, 323
Witte, John 291
Weber, Max 17, 22, 29, 153, 155, 163, 187, 190, worldview 22, 76, 79, 80, 84, 87, 93, 147, 149,
191, 196, 205, 216, 217, 321, 322, 325 151, 203, 212, 214, 227, 321, 322, 323, 326
Westcott, Wynn W. 210
Wetherell, Margaret 20, 55, 56, 57 Zock, Hetty 226
Whitehead, Amy 68, 69, zongjiao 111, 112, 113, 114, 118, 134
Wicca 139 Züfle, Lisa 217

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Making Religion

Supplements to Method & Theory

Aaron W. Hughes (University of Rochester)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/smtr

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Copyright 2016 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.

This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

List of Contributors vii

1 Theory and Method in Critical Discursive Study of Religion: An

2 No Danger! The Current Re-evaluation of Religion and Luhmann’s

3 The Matter of Meaning and the Meaning of Matter: Explorations for

4 Slippery and Saucy Discourse: Grappling with the Intersection of

5 Distinctions of Religion: The Search for Equivalents of ‘Religion’ and

6 Discourse on ‘Religion’ in Organizing Social Practices: Theoretical and

7 Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life: Modes of Observation 147

8 Towards a Praxeology of Religious Life: Tools of Observation 175

9 Religion and Science in Transformation: On Discourse Communities,

10 Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? Religious Identity in the Dutch

11 Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse in the Nordic Folk

12 Critical Reflections on the Religious-Secular Dichotomy in

13 Whose Religion, What Freedom? Discursive Constructions of Religion

14 The Complex Discursivity of Religion 319

Heinrich Wilhelm Schäfer

Leif Hagen Seibert

Adrián Tovar Simoncic

Kocku von Stuckrad

Discursive approaches to the study of religion have gained momentum in

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_002

Making Religion: Overview of the Volume

thus, the chapter’s focus is on the examination of what discourse analysis

of religion’ that allow us to describe the global discourse on ‘religion’ as a uni-

i­ ntegration discourses of Dutch citizens? Second, what is the relation between

Japanese concept of ‘religion’ (shūkyō), as a generic category, was invented in

by each special rapporteur and proposes increased involvement between

Brown, Callum. 2009. The Death of Christian Britain: Understanding Secularisation,

Theory and Method in Critical Discursive

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_003

Eek! It’s a Marxist! Run!

I have a confession to make. Well, two, actually. First, I am a sociologist. That

My point here is not to directly tackle Marxism’s (or Marxist sociology’s)

Especially in Berger’s later work, legitimation is a matter of social cohesion

There are as many definitions of ‘discourse’ as there are of ‘religion’, ranging

discourse: Cultural studies approaches focus on how “discourse shapes or consti-

As mentioned above, Foucault and functional linguistics are two important

In everyday talk, ideology is often understood as something akin to a

Doing Critical Discourse Analysis

Although all research methods have an epistemological and theoretical

Micro-textual analysis Macro-textual analysis

Structuring of propositions Combining propositions

‘demons’” (Engler 2011: 211). Another example is naming. In a report in the

Finally, in terms of text analysis, there is a focus on narrative. The study of

Analysis of Discourse Practice

Sunday school class, for example, is dependent on an implicit sense of

Analysis of Social Practice

Recent years have witnessed a welcome interest in discursive approaches to the

McLellan, David. 1987. Marxism and Religion. Basingstoke: Macmillan.

No Danger! The Current Re-evaluation of Religion

Luhmann and the Observation of Religion

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_004

9 Religion and Science in Transformation: On Discourse Communities,

10 Indonesian Muslim or World Citizen? Religious Identity in the Dutch

11 Exploring the Spread of Marketization Discourse in the Nordic Folk

12 Critical Reflections on the Religious-Secular Dichotomy in

13 Whose Religion, What Freedom? Discursive Constructions of Religion

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_002

i ntegration discourses of Dutch citizens? Second, what is the relation between

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_003

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_004

c onstituting it as a danger and reinterpreting it as a risk, the political code of

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_005

d iscourse and non-discourse are, therefore, in a dialectical relationship with

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��6 | doi 10.1163/9789004309180_006