The Reproduction of Religion in Secular Societies (RelSec)

• Applicant: Dr. Carmen Becker
• Subject Area: Religious Studies and Jewish Studies ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 538777917

Religion has ceased to be the primary reference point in secular societies where adherence to its doctrinal belief systems has been waning and institutional membership declining. Nevertheless, religion or single religions remain a key reference for human differentiation (e.g., in diversity management, discourses on migration, and integration), are reserved special treatment in administrative, legal processes (e.g., freedom of religion), order the epistemic field (e.g., the study of religion as a distinct academic discipline, theology as an academic discipline), and remain integral to the production of collective histories as so-called heritage religion. Religion is not a stand-alone category but deploys its meaning and power in relation with other categories that have ‘made the world’ and continue to do so at least since the 18th century. In short, Religion remains relevant and ubiquitous in secular societies: It is a category of differentiation in relation to the non-religious other (e.g., religious vs. secular) and of classification grouping single, bounded religions (e.g., Islam, Hinduism, Alevism, and Christianity) under the category ‘religion’. This raises the issue of the persistence of religion as an important category for world-making and, therefore, as part of the relevant stock of knowledge in Western secular societies. This research group will investigate how religion as a category of differentiation and classification is continuously reproduced in secular societies in four main social and institutional arenas: (1) institutions of secondary socialization, (2) governmental-administrative clusters, (3) cultural heritage assemblages, and (4) academia. Each of these arenas are considered central for the (re-)production of meaningful knowledge of the world on a societal scale. One ethnographic case study will be conducted in each arena investigating how religion is on-goingly actualized and re-inscribed into the social fabric of secular societies. The focus will be on practices, discourses and materialities, which are interwoven in ‘regimes of differentiation’ through which religion is externalized, objectified and internalized. The four ethnographic case studies are epistemologically and methodologically informed by three theory/method packages: (1) Situation Analysis, (2) Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD), and (3) Dispositive Analysis. The ethnographic case studies will show how secular societies actually reproduce religion as a key concept for world-making. Furthermore, the research group aims to further refine the concept of ‘regime of differentiation’ towards a heuristic programme which can be used in future research. The group will also develop open educational resources (OER) on the topic in order to share the results with educational institutions (e.g., schools and higher education).

• DFG Programme: Independent Junior Research Groups