Veronique Altglas

This edited volume aims to develop a critical sociology of religion, in the sense of engaging with ideas, debates and theories central to mainstream sociology and cognate disciplines such as Anthropology, Politics and History. In particular, the contributors share a common orientation to bringing an appreciation of the social back into the sociological study of religion, which they see as too often ignoring or evading crucial issues of power, practice, interactions and broader contexts. Through this, their chapters connect with mainstream sociological debates and attend to issues of epistemology and scientific reflexivity. Based upon original empirical research, they address a range of different religious traditions and regions of the world such Sufism in Pakistan; the Kabbalah Centre in Europe, Brazil and Israel; African Christian missions in Europe; and Evangelical Christianity.

Contributors are: Véronique Altglas, Peter Doak, Yannick Fer, Gwendoline Malogne-Fer, Christophe Monnot, Eric Morier-Genoud, Alix Philippon, and Matthew Wood.

This book is the first comprehensive and critical review of the ways in which social sciences have interpreted religion's significance in Northern Ireland. In particular, it examines the shortcomings of existing interpretations abd suggests alternative lines of thinking for more compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Irish culture and politics.  Through, and beyond, this regional case, this book also outlines a critical agenda for the social study of religion, which has theoretical, methodological and epistemological underpinnings. In particular, this work engages with epistemological issues which never have been addressed as such in the Northern Irish context: how do conflict settings affect the research undertaken on religion, when religion is an object of political and violent contentions? By analysing the scope for objective and critical thinking in such research context, this critical essay intends to contribute to a sociology of the sociology of religion.

Because space and identities are reformulated by religions as they break through geographic and cultural boundaries, religion is now widely recognized as ‘the great globalizer’. In particular, as they become transnational, religions adapt to new social contexts and interact with other cultures, transforming themselves and their cultural environment. Furthermore, religions and their adherents are extremely responsive to globalization, whether they perceive it as threatening their particular identity or as an opportunity to provide a universal message to the world and become a ‘global religion’. This new four-volume collection from Routledge brings together all the key texts on globalization and religion in one easy-to-use ‘mini library’. Each of the volumes articulates theoretical and empirical perspectives: while theories attempt to grasp the nature of the relations between globalization and religion, a diversity of case studies shed light on the importance of religion in the making of contemporary global situations.

The first volume brings together the best scholarship on religion and space in its global context. Volume II entitled 'Westernization of Religion and its Counter-Trends' looks at the debates surrounding the westernization of religion including the transnational diffusion and local expressions of Christianity and counter-trends to the westernization of religion. Volume III features articles concerning the theories and case-studies on the religious responses to globalization. The final volume looks at the new challenges, epistemological and transnational faced by religion and politics in their global context.

Cet article propose d’utiliser notion d’exotisme religieux afin d’analyser au mieux la dissémination des ressources religieuses « autres » dans les sociétés contemporaines et la relation que les acteurs sociaux entretiennent avec ces ressources. Il s’attachera aussi à montrer que cet outil conceptuel permet de reprendre les analyses qui ont été faites des bricolages composés de ressources symboliques variées, et en particulier d’en saisir les logiques culturelles et sociales. En effet, on a peut-être trop souvent surestimé l’éclectisme des combinaisons élaborées par les acteurs sociaux, pris pour acquise la disponibilité des ressources religieuses en présence et manqué de comprendre l’individualisme religieux de manière satisfaisante.

This article provides the genealogy of bricolage and underscores the modifications it has undergone within the sociologies of culture and religion. It draws on the study of three new religious movements that teach unconventional versions of Hinduism and kabbalah, to show that the current understanding of bricolage in the studies of popular culture and religion over-estimates its eclectic and personal nature and neglects its sociocultural logics. It tends to take for granted the availability of cultural resources used in bricolage, and finally it fails to understand the social significance of individualism, overlooking the ways in which norms and power could be expressed through culture in the contemporary world. This article suggests that it would be best reclaiming bricolage's original meaning, prompting questions about the contexts that make certain elements available, social patterns that may organise bricolage, who ‘bricole’, what for, who is empowered, from what and by using whose tradition.

On the basis of two case-studies, Siddha Yoga and Sivananda Centres, studied in France and England , this paper will firstly provide an analysis of the ways in which Indian gurus have adapted their salvation goods to their new audience as they came to the West; then emphasis will be placed on disciples’ religious expectations. The analysis of salvation goods in neo-Hinduism raises question about the social groups that may be particularly attracted by these Indian religious movements and on the way gurus’ teachings may reflect these socially conditioned religious needs. In this regard, we hope to contribute to an analysis of the affinities of social groups with religious choices, in line with Max Weber’s and Pierre Bourdieu’s pathbreaking work on salvation goods. Whereas Weber analysed the religious attitudes of different social classes, Bourdieu stated that religious organisations respond to “a particular category of needs proper to determinate social groups by determinate type of practice or discourse” . Nevertheless, in their analysis of the religious market, both, in different ways, argue that religious choices are connected with the expectations of specific social groups.

Ce texte porte sur la sociologie des NMR et sur ce qui, dans la relation avec son objet, fait d'elle un domaine particulièrement marqué par des problèmes déontologiques. Il donne une présentation générale (qui ne saurait être exhaustive) des problèmes déontologiques posés par l'étude des NMR et divisant les spécialistes. Nous espérons ensuite pouvoir éclairer d'un jour nouveau la nature des problèmes soulevés en les resituant dans le cadre plus large de la déontologie des sciences sociales.

Indian gurus continue today to be successful in attracting western disciples in India as well as disseminating their teachings all around the world, which seems to corroborate Colin Campbell’s interpretation of these cultural changes as a process of the easternization of the West. The aim of this article is to address this thesis, drawing on research undertaken in France and Britain on two neo-Hindu movements: Sivananda Centres and Siddha Yoga. Two aspects will be covered: the diffusion process of these organizations that became trans- national, and their reception by the host cultures.
The inescapable conclusion is that cultural encounter, adaptive strategies to national contexts, innovating ways of transmitting the teachings and simplifica- tion of the doctrines contribute to the transformation of neo-Hindu teachings as they spread transnationally. The reinterpretations and the selective approach of neo-Hindu teachings is extremely revealing of pervading attitudes regarding religion in modern societies: religious individualism, inner-worldly orientations, relativism and subjectivism about beliefs, and pragmatism. Thus one can assume that the diffusion of movements like Siddha Yoga and the Sivananda Centres probably tells us more about religious attitudes in western societies today, than about Hinduism itself.

This paper explores the relevance of Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘epistemic reflexivity’ for the sociology of religion, in particular by examining his neglected address to the French Association for the Sociology of Religion in 1982. Whilst sociologists of religion have addressed some issues of reflexivity in their practice, less attention has been paid to the crucial scientific requirement, highlighted by Bourdieu, to break from the ‘illusio’ of that field and thus avoid alignments with positions taken by religious actors themselves. As a result, many sociologists inevitably partici- pate in religious contestations and stakes, whether or not they affirm or deny their own religious identification with those they study. Although Bourdieu’s address was a response to a particular national and historical form of the sociology of religion, we argue that it retains much signifi- cance today and may lead to fruitful debate within the discipline.

This article discusses the so-called newness of today’s antisemitism through the historical and social specificities of antisemitism in French society. It casts light on the continuities of antisemitic discourse in France, but also its transformation in relation to the French colonial heritage and the recent ‘communitarianisation’ of France’s social life. This analysis of antisemitism is furthered by the presentation of two case-studies: the controversial discourses of comedian Dieudonne ́ and Ke ́mi Se ́ba, leader of a black supremacist movement called Tribu KA which stirred controversies in the 2000s. These two examples emphasise the fact that antisemitic discourse is better understood as a narrative about downward social mobility and status, which hardly makes antisemitism new.

France’s distinctive reaction towards ‘cults’ is generally described as a result of laïcité’s consubstantial problems with religious diversity. The aim of this article is to present an alternative way of thinking about the French cult contro- versy and, ultimately, about the concept of ‘laïcité’ as an explanatory framework for France’s response to religious diversity. It draws on empirical data to look at how notions such as ‘laïcité’ and ‘cults’ are used in official discourses and trans- lated into administrative practice. This approach emphasizes that laïcité is not a driving force that predetermines a unilateral response to ‘cults’, but that laïcité is as laïcité does, in other words a highly claimed and contested value, reflecting divergent political and administrative approaches to the cult phenomenon. The framework ‘laïcité versus religious diversity’ is also undermined by another cru- cial observation. While it sees the cult controversy as primarily a religious issue, it seems that the recent revitalization of the combat against ‘cults’ was made pos- sible by its partial dissociation from the religious sphere and its extension to a wider range of practices and new areas.

The Kabbalah Centre is an offshoot of Judaism, which since the 1990s, has spread kabbalistic teaching in several countries to a religiously diverse audience. This article compares two European branches of the Kabbalah Centre: the flourishing London Centre, and the Parisian Centre that declined in the late 1990s before closing its doors in 2005. It emphasizes, in particular, the responses they stirred from the media, anticult movements, Orthodox Judaism, and the Jewish population generally. Ultimately, these case studies allow us to observe the trajectory of a global religion torn between its Jewish roots and universalistic ambitions.

Whether we look at the diffusion of modern Hindu teaching in the West with gurus touring in to teach yoga and meditation since the 1970s, or at the growing popularisation of Kabbalah at the turn of the new millennium, religious resources seem to circulate globally in an unprecedented fashion. These two cases, which do not lead to conversion, pose similar questions. Hinduism has often been described as non-missionary and as being composed of a mosaic of multiple traditions. Since it is related to the caste system, it is solidly intertwined with the Indian social organisation and for this reason it has often been defined as an ethnic religion, with limited potential for global dispersion. So how has Hinduism become universal? This is the very same issue one is confronted with regarding the fast-growing Kabbalah Centre, established in Israel during the 1970s by Philip Berg, a New-Yorker of Jewish origin. His teaching, focused on Kabbalah, firstly targeted Jews alienated from their roots, but in the 1990s he extended his audience to all “spiritual seekers”. How can a body of beliefs and practices rooted in Judaism be spread as a universal teaching? What place is there for the non-Jewish students of this movement who, following the traditional way of thought, do not belong to the chosen people which has to play a special role in human history? In other words, the issue here is the processes of transformations by which so-called ethnic religions are de-territorialized to become global. This paper addresses the globalisation of religion by comparing two case-studies: neo-Hindu movements that spread in the West (we will draw in particular on qualitative research conducted in Siddha Yoga and in the Sivananda centres) and the Kabbalah Centre. Other “neo-kabbalistic” organisations do exist and their inclusion in our analysis would certainly have enhanced the comparison; however, we hope to show that such comparative approach is fruitful and may contribute to a better understanding of the globalisation of religious resources.

Dans son dernier ouvrage, Du religieux, du théologique et du social, Pierre Gisel nous invite à considérer la religion comme un symptôme. Ce chapitre a pour objectif de discuter la signification et la pertinence d’une telle approche pour la sociologie de la religion. Il se présente en trois volets. Le premier discute la manière dont la sociologie classique, en analysant la religion en dehors d’elle-même, a pu effectivement regarder la religion comme symptomatique de transformations sociales. Le second volet de ce chapitre poursuit la réflexion en rappelant que pour le sociologue Pierre Bourdieu, une sociologie qui ne s’émanciperait pas du religieux pour y saisir le fait social qui y réside ne peut véritablement exister. Enfin, dans un dernier temps, j’illustrerai l’importance de cette émancipation et de l’exhortation de Pierre Gisel à regarder la religion comme symptôme par une réflexion sur les ‘bricolages’ et ‘recompositions’ au sein du religieux contemporain.