Religie wordt vaak opgevat als een illusionaire macht waarmee onderscheid wordt gemaakt tussen het seculiere en het sacrale en daarmee tussen mensen die wel en mensen die niet uitverkoren zijn. Macht en geweld vallen in een dergelijke opvatting vrijwel samen. Aan de hand van het werk van Pierre Bourdieu laat ik zien dat dit leidt, hetzij tot een positie waarin ieder onderscheidend vermogen tussen wat waar of niet waar is verdwijnt, hetzij tot een positie waarin de criteria zo hoog worden (...) opgeschroefd dat waarheidsvinding nauwelijks mogelijk meer is. Tot slot verdedig ik een positie waarin religie begrepen wordt als een normatieve praktijk, waarin ook aan de uitoefening van macht een eigen plaats toekomt. (shrink)

According to the religious economies model, religious supply in open religious economies should adapt to the demands of diverse market niches. This proposition is inconsistent with the finding that, although women constitute the majority of religious consumers, the majority of the religions produced in the American religious marketplace favor men's interests relative to women's. Three modifications to the religious economies model are suggested to account for this contradiction. The first modification is a respecification of "religious capital " that takes into (...) account unequal distributions of power among producers of religious value and their differential effects on the beneficiaries and targets of religious norms. The second modification theorizes religion's linkages to other social institutions as sources of cost and benefit that are taken into account by religious entrepreneurs. The third modification accounts for status-based discrimination and unequal distributions of capital as sources of constraint that influence the production of religious supply. Several directions for future research are proposed. (shrink)

This article explains variations in misrecognition of domination among the racialized subaltern. I draw on a comparative analysis of the fields of Islam in France and India, informed by the work of Bourdieu and Fanon. I first argue that Bourdieu’s concept of the religious field provides a crucial reframing of the Islamic field whereby religious judgments represent classification struggles over legitimate Islam. Second, I approach misrecognition in the field by distinguishing the field’s discourse from its doxa. I argue that misrecognition (...) varies according to the degree of subaltern minority integration into educational institutions and proximity of the subaltern to the dominant classes. I bring in the work of Fanon, whose writings on the psychological effects of racial domination are a crucial complement to a Bourdieusian analysis. Together, they provide a more refined understanding of misrecognition in racialized religious fields and, in turn, potential for political resistance. (shrink)

By means of a comparison between Bourdieu and Simmel, this article explores the fusion of theology and religion so as to give sociological expression to Kierkegaard's leap of faith. When detached from theology, religion services civil and secular needs in ways that enhance power and the right of the state to regulate the agenda of the politics of identity. In their dealings with religion, Bourdieu and Simmel present sociology with a choice of fusing the category of religion with theology or (...) not. If the outcome is fusion, then the prospects of a religious reflexivity are enhanced, thus facilitating a leap of faith and the opening of a fruitful dialogue with theology, where sociology can develop new horizons for understandings of culture. (shrink)