Discovering

Religion and
Globalization
Victor Roudometof
 1 Religion and Globalization by Victor Roudometof

What we 2 Cross-Disciplinary Considerations: Beyond the

Secularization Debate –

will disxuss 3 Globalization: Perspectives from theField

and tackle 4 Transnational Religion and Multiple

Glocalizations
5 Conclusions
 Religion Victor
Globalization Roudometof
Religion is a belief in a The spread of the flow of HE believes that globalization
,not modernisation,provides
God or Gods and the financial products,goods, the overall framework for the
activities that are technology,information, and presentation and analysis of
connected with this jobs across national borders the transformation of
Orthodox Christianity in
belief and cultures world history
 RELIGION AND GLOBALIZATION BY
VICTOR ROUDOMETOF
The social-scientific study of religion is a field that has played a

critical important role in shaping the contemporary scholarly

understanding of globalization.
This discussion focuses more closely

on the field of the sociology of
religion, where the dominanceof the secularization paradigm comes
under scrutiny. The next section expands into contemporary issues and
research agendas that interrogate the relationship between religion and
globalization and presents different interpretations of this relationship

In the final section, two relatively recent research agendas are

presented: transnational religion and the relationship between
religion and culture. By way of introduction, it is critically
important that the reader is aware that this chapter does not
attempt to capture the totality of contemporary scholarly
agendas that pertain to the study of religion as such. Rather, in
accordance with this volume's focus,it only addresses that portion
of the voluminous literature on religion that is engaged with
globalization.
 Cross-Disciplinary
Considerations ,'
Beyond the Secularization
Debate
The study of religion is an inter- or cross-disciplinary inquiry (Crawford, 2001). As such, it
has not always been successfully incorporated into social scientific disciplines. Hinnells's
(2010: 6) statement that ‘sociology, psychology, history, philosophy departments in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries have moved religious studies towards the margins of
their subject”’ is telling.

The organizational structure of the field is admirably reflective of this historical divide
between the study of religion and the social sciences. Major scientific organizations have
maintained their institutional autonomy including the American Academy of Religion
(AAR) the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), and the Association for
Sociology of Religion (ASR) As per indications the Sociology of Religion Section of the
American Sociological Association (ASA) was first established in 1994.
The American Catholic Sociological Society was established in 1938, while the SSSR was
established in 1948.
Both the European International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR) and the US-
based American Society for the Sociology of Religion (ASR) began with significant
Catholic ties.
Western Europe once regarded as the paradigmatic case of secularization is viewed as an
exception from global patterns, whereas the United States, once regarded as an exceptional
case is viewed as more typical of global patterns of religiosity
Whereas in the sixteenth century Western people could scarcely be ignorant of God, where
that is an option in today’s time.
In contemporary scholarship, there are two broad streams of ideas concerning
secularization: First, there is the notion of post-secular society,
Second, secularism is seen as an active project that is articulated alongside the Western
modernity of the post-1500s world.
 The secularization paradigm has been constructed based on the historical
trajectories of a selective group of Western nations while ignoring non-Western
regions.
To this day, there is a strong Western scholarly presence in the study of religion,
and the majority of the social scientists working in the field are preoccupied with
the study of Europe and North America.
The overwhelming majority of work in the sociology of religion naturalizes the trans-
Atlanticultural context of its surroundings. Thus the Orientalism of the past resurfaces as
academic parochialism.
Riesebrodt and Konieczny argue that the sociology of religion must overcome its rampant
parochialism. It must move beyond theoretical paradigms that work just for a particular
Western nation or religious tradition.
 Globalization:
Perspectives from
the
Field

Globalization is not a process that can be easily narrated within a single

authoritative narrative – rather the very notion of various locales coalescing
into the global promotes the construction of multiple narratives that reflect
the manner in which each group, religious tradition or region contributed to
the construction of the ‘global’

In Robertson's (1992)original statement, globalization is defined as‘the compression of

the world’ and means the accelerated pace of contact among cultures, peoples, and
civilizations or the sense that the world is shrinking. Unlike Parsons, Robertson does
not equate globalization with universalism– but rather proposes the interpenetration of
universalism and particularism . As a result ,Robertson's approach offered an alternative
to the old modernization theory that equated modernization with universalism,
secularism and cross-cultural convergence.
Albrow(1997)speaks of a global age that supersedes the ‘modern age, while
Giddens (1990) views globalization as a ‘consequence of modernity and Beck
(1992) as the result of ‘second modernity. In these interpretations, the
emphasis is placed on globalization's temporality, whereby contemporary
developments are said to constitute a new era phase or stage that is viewed as
qualitatively distinct from past historical eras.
Old forms of territorial attachments are decoupled, and new forms of such
attachments are forged. This dialectic is prominently displayed in both in trends
toward greater ecumenical orientation as well as in transnational religion. This
dialectic reshapes the worlds religious geography through increased cross-
cultural contact. It makes possible the lifting of social relations from their
original setting, whereby a ‘locale’ ceases to be always geographically
circumscribed
As Obadia (2010) argues theorizing religion and globalization has been
subject to two different lines of interpretation: globalization of religion
versus globalization and religion. In the first problem, fundamental
research question pertains to the spread of religions and specific genres
or forms or blueprints of religious expression across the globe.

Beyer (2006) proposes that the very notion of what constitutes a

‘religion’, as commonly understood, is the product of a long-term
process of inter-civilizational or cross-cultural interactions.
Transnational
Religion
and
Multiple
Glocalizations

Beyer Transnational studies emerged gradually since the 1990s in

connection to the study of post-World War II new immigrants or trans-
migrants who moved from Third World and developing countries into
developed First World nations.
Concomitant with the movements of peoples the migration of faith across
the globe has been a major feature of the world throughout the twentieth
century.
Transnational religion emerged through the post-World War II spread of
several religions of which perhaps the most prominent example is the
explosion of Protestantism in the hitherto solidly Catholic Latin America.
 Jenkins (2007), has noted the rapid growth of Christianity in the global south
countering arguments that Islam would overtake Christianity as the world's most
popular faith.
Transnational religions has been used to describe cases of institutional
transnationalism
The post-1989 disintegration of the communist bloc and the collapse of the Soviet
Union led to the overnight constitution of a Russian Orthodox transnational
community of close to 30 million people residing outside the borders of the Russian
Federation.
The intersection of religion and culture is the subject of the second important study
agenda.
Campbell (2007) has proposed a more promising and original line of inquiry,
suggesting that during the post-World War II era the disenchanted West has been
re-enchanted through imports from the East.
The flexible relationship between East and West as opposed to the Orient
and Occident of earlier centuries is one of Campbell's line of interpretation's
major advantages.
The ability of religion to integrate into the fabric of various communities in
ways that connect it intimately with local and communal relations is
reflected in the various processes known as indigenization, hybridization, or
glocalization.
Religion gives up its idea of universal homogeneity in favor of blending in,
thus global-local religion, also known as glocal religion, is a "genre of
expression, communication, and legitimation of communal and individual
identities."
Roudometof(2013,2014)argues that it is possible to detect four concrete forms of
glocalization: indigenization, vernacularization, nationalization, and
transnationalization.
Indigenization was connected to the survival of particular ethnic groups
Vernacularization was often promoted by empires,

.Transnationalization has complemented religious nationalization by

forcing groups to identify with specific religious traditions of real or
imagined national home and sort of adopt a more universallist vision
of religion.
 Conclusions
This section aimed to map some significant advances in the relationship between the
study of religion and globalization and critiqued the conventional secularization paradigm.
In response to Turner's insightful remark, this chapter has offered a brief overview of
scholarship that has specifically focused on the relationship between religion and
globalization.
It is precisely because secularization enjoys entrenched dominance in western scholarly
traditions that ‘one major weakness of much modern sociology of religion, including the
usual range of textbooks,
The chapter has specifically has specific contributions in the field and has stressed the
degree to which historically oriented and cross-cultural scholarship on the relationship
between religion and globalization represents an important area of current research.
 Lastly, the chapter has addressed two new frontiers of
social research on the relationship between religion and
globalization. The first of these is the intersection
between transnational studies and the study of
religion.The second frontier concerns the renewed
interest in the relationship between culture and religion.
Thank You for
listening!