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CARD NETWORK http://cardnetwork.au.dk/
Abstract Des chercheurs du monde entier se concentrent actuellement sur la diversité religieuse. En étudiant la diversité religieuse, on en est également en train de construire. En 2012, une allocation du conseil danois des recherhces en sciences humaines a permis au réseau CARD d’étudier les conséquences méthodologiques de cette diversité. Le but définitif sera une meilleure compréhension de la maniêre dont la réligion est conceptualisée, définée et surveillée par les états et les chercheurs qui étudient la diversité dans ces états. Le papier présente les idées fondamentales du réseau avec un accent particulier sur la réligion et la super-diversité.
Why the CARD network? • “I think that we made a category mistake: We confused secularization with pluralization, secularity with plurality. It turns out that modernity does not necessarily produce a decline of religion; it does necessarily produce adeepening process of pluralization—a historically unprecedented situation in which more and more people live amid competing beliefs, values and lifestyles. This situation has profound effects on religion … but these are different from the effects of secularization” (Berger 2012: 313) • Funding agencies/society: Horizon 2020 f.i. + policy interest
RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY: INCREASING?! • “The fact of religious resurgence, increased religious diversity and increasing religious conflict raise issues about the nature, construction and negotiation of the boundaries between and within religious groups.”(Bouma 2007: 187) • ” Because of worldwide migration and globalization, racial, ethnic, cultural,linguistic, and religiousdiversity is increasing in nations around the world, including the United States”(Banks 2009) • ” America has always been a religiously diverse nation, but this has increased in recent decades.”(Smith 2002) • The increasing diversity in both Europe and the United States (Berger & Davie 2008)
Call for criticalreflection? • “the meaning and implications of the term diversity are contested. By this we mean that there is no single way to conceptualize diversity, and further, that there are consequences to naming diversity as something to be studied”(Beaman & Beyer 2008: 2). • AND defining and categorizing religion…
Superdiversity: ‘diversification of diversity “..it is not enough to see diversity only in terms of ethnicity, as is regularly the case both in social science and the wider public sphere. Such additional variables include differential immigration statuses and their concomitant entitlements and restrictions of rights, divergent labourmarket experiences, discrete gender and age profiles, patterns of spatial distribution, and mixed local area responses by service providers and residents. Rarely are these factors described side by side. The interplay of these factors is what is meant here, in summary fashion, by the notion of ‘super-diversity’.´”(Vertovic 2007:1025)
Check list for critical research on religious diversity • Terminology • What are the operational terms of your project (religious diversity, religious pluralism, religious plurality, religious field, multi-religious society, multi-faith, multiculturalism, superdiversity or other)? Is religion central or peripheral to your study? • How do you define the term(s) and if you use more terms how do they relate to each other? • How is ‘religious’ understood? In terms of beliefs, practices, values, symbols, institutions? • What are the boundaries of the concept? And how do you deal with terms such as spirituality? • Is your terminology/definition/categorization based on emic and/or etic perspective? • Are you including groups resisting the designation as religious?
Methodology • What methods are you using to study religious diversity? Are you using quantitative data, qualitative data, or micro, macro, longitudinal style/ multi-sited, comparisons? • What is the unit of analysis of your research? (Individuals, worship places, organisations, rituals…) • How do these methods inform each other? Could the use of mixed methods or innovative methods be of help? • What are you finding to be the strengths and weaknesses of these methods for your research? • How does your research treat individuals who profess multiple religious affiliations and those who conflate their religion with their national or ethnic identity? What do you consider a member of a particular religion and what criteria do you use for it? • How does your research treat intra-religious differences? • Does your research take into account different “spokespersons” or interlocutors for religious organisations? Is there any gender or age bias? How do you deal with it? • How does your choice of focusing on majority or minority religion(s) influence your choice of methods? • Are there any difficulties of accessing minority groups? And of accessing majority groups? • Do you take into account issues of confidentiality? How do you deal with it? • Context • What is the scope of the study (in terms of space and time)? Does your data cover the scope sufficiently? Which are the criteria used to decide the scope of the research? • What is the political context? Is religious diversity a controversial subject? • How does changing understanding of private/public religion inform your study? • What is the role of the media in forming categories of religious diversity? • What is the role of the academia in forming categories of religious diversity? • What is the role of the state, law and human rights in forming categories of religious diversity? Do you for instance use census data or other types of ‘official data’? • How does conceptualization/categorization of religious diversity have impact on the empirical field of religious diversity? • Framing • Does the research focus on dominant groups or does it include less visible groups and organizations with ambiguous religious identity? • What limitations and relationships have you assumed when using broad categories to define religious groups such as Buddhist, Christian and Muslim? • How are unbelief/non religion/spirituality being assessed? • Does your research focus with the differences between religious groups or also on commonalities? • Theories • Beyond diversity which operational concepts (identity, ethnicity, race, cosmopolitanism, secularization, citizenship, social cohesion) are you using? • Is your research informed by human rights discourses and law? • Are new categories and/or definitions of religion necessary? • Funding/institutional logistics • Is there pre-existing research on religious diversity in your area (govt. , policy organization, academic)? • Are you using the same categories as this research? • How is your research funded? • Does this set limitations for your study? • How do you negotiate your accesses to the research field? How does the funding/institutional logic affect the relationship of the researcher with the researched? • Outcomes • What is the overall aim of your study? • How will it be disseminated? • What will be the consequences for the people you study in terms of for instance inter-religious relations, government policy, educational reform, resource development, media access and representation, religious literacy? • Does your work on religious diversity have implications that need ethical consideration? • Have you planned to offer something in return to the researched field?
