Religion, Politics and Culture

This article is offered as a meta-reflection on the links between religion & politics in the contemporary world. What do we see? How do we position ourselves -- both in order to see & in response to what we see? What is this place in/from which we see? These questions are posed over the course of the text, which pursues the following hypotheses: (1) at the level of culture & everyday life, the public sphere & politics, religious actors circulate & publicly express their language, ethos & demands, with a variety of implications; (2) this either contributes to the emergence of pluralistic & dialogic forms, or indicates a narrowing of the communication channels & the escalation of violence & intolerance; (3) processes of 'recognition', 'acknowledgment' & 'dialogue' between lay & religious actors are thereby generated through the interconnecting of issues of national/ethnic! racial/gender! class/age identification & political demands. Such a scenario elicits thematic & theoretical repositionings from social scientists, which are identified & discussed in the text. References. Adapted from the source document.