Religion Bites

This  podcast is based on a blog article that I first wrote a couple of years  ago, and was recorded at the end of 2018 (soon before I fell ill).  Although in reflection on issues raised last year and in 2020, I would  probably add more discussion to my reflections here. However, I think  this is still relevant to some of the contemporary debates about how the  discipline of the study of religion needs to address the many  challenges of anti-racism, both as a subject area and within the wider  academy.

A text version of this episode, together with the links mentioned, can be found below.

https://medium.com/religion-bites/does-religious-studies-have-a-problem-with-race-e7d94efe3765

If we are exploring religion in culture, then how and what do we talk about as religion?

This  is a question that goes across much of the contemporary study of  religion, and impacts on it in various ways — not only in particular  religious and culture contexts, but also very noticeably in the  idea/approach of ‘material religion’. In short, if we want to explore ‘religion’ within particular cultural locations — such as religion in a book (e.g., Harry Potter) or a film/s (e.g., Star Wars) — then can we say that religion is a thing to find or a ‘manifestation’ of something (such as ‘the sacred’)? My straightforward answer to this is a definite ‘no’: religion is not a thing, it is not an it.

A text version of this episode, together with the links mentioned, can be found at the link below. (The episode was recorded a while ago, when I was still  teaching at the University of Glasgow — that explains why I talk about  teaching a class, when of course at present such face to face teaching  is not possible due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020!).

https://medium.com/religion-bites-podcast/023-what-are-we-looking-for-when-we-look-at-religion-and-popularculture-66f5f1d50214

There can be no doubt that the academic study of religion emerged out  of European colonialism. There are various lines of descent for the  discipline, and like much of the humanities and social sciences, they  all lead back to colonialism, and in particular the nineteenth and early  twentieth centuries.

And so, during a time when there is a  widespread movement for the decolonisation of knowledge, is there a need  for a decolonisation of the study of religion? And if so, then what  does it involve?

These are some initial thoughts on this major issue.

A written version of this episode can be found at:

https://medium.com/religion-bites/decolonisation-of-religious-studies-993727c6d1bc

I am a student of religion who does not study religion. I study what people think and talk about as religion.

I  study the spaces, places, things, objects, ideas, practices, and  conflicts that can be found in particular discourses that get labelled  and thought about as ‘religion’. I study the idea of religion.

A written text version of this episode can be found at:

https://medium.com/religion-bites/i-dont-study-religion-so-what-am-i-doing-in-the-study-of-religion-be2653682feb

When we speak of religion are we in fact talking about race? Does the  idea of ‘religion’ only make sense if we consider it as a particular  instance of a racial formation?

A written text version of this episode can be found at:

https://medium.com/religion-bites/the-analysis-of-race-in-the-study-of-religion-c9288a5da01d

To understand the burkini bans in France in summer 2016, our starting  point needs to be based on an assumption of intersectionality. The bans  are not only about religion or security, they also involve gender,  sexuality, race, power, and history.

A written version of this episode can be found at:

https://medium.com/religion-bites/burkini-bans-in-france-its-all-about-intersectionality-e81a9b1714ef

The history of the idea  of chocolate is somewhat similar to the history of how we think about  religions. Chocolate became chocolate through colonial encounter and  appropriation. Without colonialism, we would not talk about chocolate –  the same with religion.

A written version of this episode can be found at:

https://medium.com/religion-bites/religion-is-like-chocolate-e38536eda9ba

So, here is a question that is rarely asked in Religion 101 classes: What type of gloves should you be wearing?

All  studies of religion are a study of humans, people and the worlds,  cultures, meanings, ideas, and practices they live within. What we  choose to wear (perhaps metaphorically) on our hands helps to shape what  we do in the study of religion.

A written version of this episode can be found on the Religion Bites blog: https://medium.com/religion-bites/trying-to-understand-religion-its-a-matter-of-finding-the-right-gloves-to-wear-811fbc25ac5b

Postcolonialism  and religion: in what ways are history and the contemporary world  relevant not only to the topic of religion, but also to how we analyse  and understand religions and cultures?

In this episode, my aim is to encourage you to stop using the word ‘belief’ when you think about (and talk about) religion.

It  is not a useful word, and for most of the time it does the opposite of  what we want the word to do — that is, it obscures our attempts to  understand, rather than adding any clarity or precision.

Agency is a concept often used to understand how people participate in (and sometimes resist) religious contexts and structures.

That  is, how do people who are in a subordinate position and who are  marginalised from the main areas of power, how do they live with (and  perhaps overcome) their powerless-ness?

This  episode introduces the concept of intersectionality, a way to  understand complex issues and identities deriving in particular from the  work of Kimberlee Crenshaw.

An  intersectional approach recognises that the ‘single’ categories that we  rely on for much of our analysis (race, gender, class, etc) do not and  cannot exist on their own. There is no race, it exists within its  intersections with other differences — such as class, gender,  sexualities, religion, and so on.

Every time we ‘see race’ we see it within such intersections, intersecting with other categories / aspects of cultural life.

Is race a matter of identity (what people think of differences) or is it a biological given?

How  is it that the idea of race-as-a-given works to structure and enforce  differences (and power relations) within a particular society?

Gender  matters to our understanding of culture and religion. How we understand  gender, gender differences, and the understandings and practices of  gender has a profound impact on how we talk about (and understand)  religion.

Gender is a means of understanding the concept of culture.

All  aspects of culture are gendered — both in terms of how differences  between genders are perceived, but also how they are lived out. Gender  is a place for power relations (remember that power is everywhere) — not  only clear cut male control of women (such as patriarchy), but also the  means by why power relations are put into practice.

An  understanding of power, in its many forms, is an important part of the  study of religion and culture. In this podcast on ‘Religion, Power and  Ideology’ I give an outline of Michel Foucault’s understanding of the  concept of power. In particular, ‘power is everywhere because it comes  from everywhere’.

One  instance of power and religion is the idea of an ideology – religion as  a means by which power relations (and inequalities based on such power  relations) are naturalised and legitimated. Religion is not the only  form of ideology, but I raise the important question to ask in any study  of religion: ‘where is the money?’.

Religion  does not just exist within the context of culture. What we think of as  religion always also exists within contexts of power, gender, race,  ethnicity, and other areas of identity and difference.

Or  to put this another way: power, gender, and race are basic (and  universal) aspects of human behaviour. To understand what humans do, we  have to understand the contexts of power, gender, and race, etc in which  that human action is located.

Whenever we do something, it can be understood and analysed (if we wish) in relation to power, gender, and race.

And likewise so with religion. A key part of understanding any religious context requires also asking similar questions.

Building  on the discussion in the last two episodes, I introduce here the idea  of subculture to explore through examples the linkages between such  cultures of resistance, the cultural products that come from them, and  religious ideas and practices.

When  we reverse the discussion, and explore how we can understand the many  ways in which we can explore culture within religion, again the gap  between the two disappears.

Thus,  culture is the medium through which religion is done, and cultural  differences often are the means by which religions differ.

This  can be highlighted by the ways in which we talk about differences  within what we consider the ‘same’ religion (e.g., the differences  within Christianity or within Islam). People live and express different  forms of these religions through their culture differences.

Continuing  the discussion of religion and culture, in this episode we explore what  is seen as the gap between the two. Looking at specific examples of  religion in culture – in both ‘high’ and popular culture – we examine  how religion is often the basis of the language of experience, a form of  culture that we live by.

Religion is a cultural  practice. And culture is bound up with religious ideas, identities and religion practice. Religion can be understood as a form of culture, and  the study of religion is a form of cultural studies.

And what we gain from this is the shift of our point of reference to the practical, the everyday, that is what people do.

In order to understand the  contemporary world we need to take religion seriously. Although some  may think of religion as an ancient (or medieval) relic of bygone times,  religions are very often important elements of the contemporary world.  We need to recognise that religion and religions have an impact in many  different ways.

Thus we can ask questions about the changing roles  of religion in contemporary societies. For example, is there a process  of ‘secularisation’, of the decline of religion, going on, and if so, is  there any way of knowing where this will go?

Is religion part of  modernity or is it opposed to it? What role does religion have in the  processes of globalisation, and how is globalisation itself spread and  enhanced by religion? How do new media impact on religion, and again  vice versa – how are media themselves developed and changed by the  influence of religious groups and religious practices?

And how can  we make sense of the particularities of the contemporary world in terms  of the historical legacies of particular religions. How has the world  we live in been shaped by particular religious ideas, by events in the  past that were rooted in religious issues.

And how does diversity –  at the international, the national, and the local levels – create  religious issues in the contemporary world?

If it is difficult to define religion, what about if we try to avoid doing so? Can we talk about religion without a definition?

Trying to find a definition is almost like stepping through a quagmire, it is messy and difficult, and unhelpful in many ways.

The aim of this discussion is to encourage you to think about the difficulties of thinking and talking about religion.

Whether  we are ‘for’ or ‘against’ religion, whether we have a particular  religious faith or not, it is important for us to start from a point of  recognising complexity. There are no simple answers, because there are  no simple questions.

Defining religion: What is it all about and what do we mean by the term religion?

Well  one thing to ask before we start exploring this is does it really  matter. Surely we know what religion is, it is just there…?

Whether  we like it or not it is everywhere, and as I have been trying to stress  in setting up Religion Bites it is worth accepting that religion is  part of the world in which we live, we can’t ignore it, we need to live  with it around us, and so we are really challenge to try to understand  it a bit better.

And that is why it is worth taking just a few minutes to reflect on the idea of what is religion?

What is it? The thing we call religion?

What  are the meanings we give to the word religion, how do we use it when we  talk about religion? Say in the classroom, in books, or in our daily  lives?

If we start off asking this question, it gives us the  chance to try to understand what we are talking about, and also what we  are not talking about

This is a podcast by Malory Nye on the study of religion