The Lautsi case in Italy attracted widespread attention in Europe and beyond. Though the issue under contention was a Christian symbol, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgements showed changes in assessment both about religion (in contrast with former cases regarding Muslim veils) and secularism (which did not have the same meaning for everyone). In light of those rulings, this paper reflects on the concepts of neutrality and secularism and their normative implications for European citizens in terms of belonging, (...) solidarity and cohesion. An open and plural public sphere, in which intercultural exchange can flourish, is crucial if Europe is serious about the integration of its immigrants, many of whom possess a Muslim background. A ‘post-secular’ Europe may have to reconsider long-held stereotypes about religion and nuance its self-understanding as ‘secular’, in a way that religious citizens can identify with Europe too. The discussion will draw on the ideas of Taylor, Casanova, Habermas, Weiler and Beck to illustrate some of the political, ethical and theoretical complexities of the Lautsi case, specifically issues to do with neutrality, secularism and the role of religion in the public sphere. (shrink)

This paper discusses the diverse forms of contemporary Islam practised by the Kists, inhabitants of Georgia's Pankisi Gorge related to the Chechens. The newest wave of Salafi-inspired Islam among the young generation of Chechens, mostly men who have fought in the Chechen-Russian war, is aesthetically marked by a distinctive style of minaret and by a more public adhān than Pankisi has hitherto known. The reactions of local Kists to the aesthetics and morality of the new Islam, and the distinctions between (...) Salafi, Wahhabi, and Pankisi Islam are explored. It is argued that the new Islam is not as foreign to the Caucasus as scholarship tends to suggest. Ethnographies of minarets and headstones are followed by an exploration of reactions to Soviet secularism in the historiography of Chechen Islam. Positioning itself within recent scholarship aiming to overcome the constraints imposed by secular forms of knowledge in the study of Islamic societies, the paper seeks to locate the unique modes of Kist belief within the framework of a comparative, post-secular anthropology of Islam. (shrink)

In the concept of European citizenship, public and international law intersect. The unity of the European polity results from the interplay between national and European loyalties. Citizens’ allegiance to the European polity depends on how much they see the polity’s identity as theirs. Foundational ideals that shaped the European project’s identity included social reconciliation and peaceful coexistence, economic reconstruction and widespread prosperity, and the creation of supranational structures to rein in nationalism. A broad cultural consensus underlay the first impulse for (...) integration. Europeans had little trouble giving explicit or tacit allegiance to such a project, which resulted in an unparalleled success. However, roughly 60 years and 20 Member States later, social integration is being challenged as immigrants with diverse cultural backgrounds arrive, while far-right political parties surge in reaction; economic integration is confronted with a faltering euro and countries struggling to meet financial commitments; and political integration weakens as the EU seems to fail the democratic test. Cultural assumptions are no longer shared by all. Allegiance to today’s EU is problematic for the ordinary European citizen. This paper submits that careful attention to the spirit of the foundational ideals sheds light on how the present problems as well as future integration could and should be approached. (shrink)

In this article I contend that the re-emergence of religion in Western liberal states is a feature of a much broader phenomenon, namely, the re-establishment of legal pluralism whereby various social actors claim to be the legitimate producers of their own law. To prove this, I first offer an account of secularization as the successful attempt of modern states to dismantle a legal-pluralist system. Based on this, I argue that the reviviscence of religions is the reviviscence of their practical side: (...) religious practices tend to be perceived by religious group members as providing guidance for conduct, one that challenges the rules of the state legal order and its monistic structure. Finally, by exploring the issue of same-sex union recognition, I defend the claim that, in a truly post-secular society, the state should allow a multiplicity of relationship-recognition models that reflect and meet different interests and needs. (shrink)

This study uses the Religion and State round 2 dataset to examine the presence of religious freedom in 177 countries. There are many different conceptions of the meaning of religious freedom but they can be divided into two categories, those which focus on the free exercise of religion—that is the right to practice religion and maintain religious institutions—and those which focus on treating all religions equally, also known as the level playing field model. The results show that neither form of (...) religious freedom is common even among democracies and states which have constitutional clauses protecting religious freedom. This finding has serious implications for our understanding of the nature of liberal democracy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper seeks to problematise and complexify scholarly accounts of contemporary emotional repression in Western contexts by presenting counterevidence in the form of two examples of post-secular collective affectivity and their ritual expressions. It argues that both narratives of emotional repression and expression fail to capture the non-linear complexity of processes of cultural transformation, which have resulted in the simultaneous expression and repression of ritualistic affects that are products of our evolutionary embodied history. Drawing on insights from affect theory, this (...) paper seeks to illustrate how contingent yet nonetheless residual ritualistic affects have become repressed in the nominally secular public sphere in modernity. This has presented certain obstacles to the open communal display of religious ritual, and, as a corollary, the expression of certain religious affects, which have subsequently re-emerged in post-secular ritual spaces that are both publically private and pr... (shrink)

Despite its promises, the Islamic state of Iran has systematically prioritized political considerations over religious precepts, inadvertently generating a reformist religious discourse that challenges the very foundations of the Islamic state. This article conceptualizes the religious secularity discourse and the paradoxes ingrained in the Islamic state. The religious secularity discourse rejects the notion that Islamic holy texts offer a blueprint for governance and calls for the secular democratic state to realize the core principle of Islam: justice [Adl]. Towards this end, (...) inclusive secular democratic principles champion a socio-political polity conducive to the cultivation of genuine religiosity, whereby faith and religious practices are free of coercion by fellow citizens or state institutions. By blurring the boundary between the religious and the secular and challenging the religious secular dichotomy, religious secularity highlights the relevance and possibility of harmonizing Islamic and inclusive secular democratic principles. (shrink)

Despite its promises, the Islamic state of Iran has systematically prioritized political considerations over religious precepts, inadvertently generating a reformist religious discourse that challe...