Thursday 12 April 2012 at 16:00 - 17:30
SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION Warden, R.
The Role of Religion within an Islamic FBO: Findings from a Case Study
This paper will present findings from PhD fieldwork exploring the multidimensional role of religion within an Islamic FBO. This particular FBO offers welfare services to the community including counselling, befriending, mediation and spiritual guidance. Drawing upon interviews and observations with staff members, referring agencies, service users and volunteers, the focus of the research is in exploring the role and significance of Islam within this specific organisational context.
The paper will explore the manifold ways in which the Islamic identity of the organisation is constructed and contested by the various actors interacting within this context. Particularly the relationship between such an Islamic identity and a multicultural approach to service provision will be discussed. In this respect some of the debates regarding religion within this micro context can be seen to relate to wider questions within contemporary society regarding the appropriate role for religion within the public sphere. The paper will also reflect upon the complex relationship between the terms 'religion' and 'spirituality'. Analysis of the Islamic approach to spirituality, as described by research participants at the FBO, will further question the relationship between these terms as they are used contemporarily, particularly within publications emerging from the social work academic sphere.
Wilkins Laflamme, S. University of Oxford, Nuffield College
Towards Religious Polarisation in the West? Measuring Long-Term Effects on Religious Commitment in the UK, the US and Canada
For over a century, many have been predicting the demise of religion within western societies. However, while religious attitudes and behaviour have changed dramatically since the Victorian era, many sociological studies since the 1960s have shown that the contemporary social realities and effects of religion are extremely complex. More recently, empirical evidence has been pointing towards a new development: one of religious polarisation. The large middle ground of Westerners retaining some form of attachment to traditional churches without actively practising within them appears to be shrinking, splitting more and more into two distinctive camps: a larger group completely severed from all forms of religion and religiosity contrasts a small but steady core of individuals completely integrated into religious life. Current research at the University of Oxford is exploring the logistics of how, where, when, why and to what end this religious polarisation has been developing in western countries. The present paper will discuss a first series of findings from this innovative study. Using cross-sectional time-series survey data from the UK, the US and Canada, results from multinomial logit and Age/Period/Cohort Intrinsic Estimator models measuring and comparing at a regional level the evolving effects of period and other socio- demographic variables on institutional religious commitment will be explored in detail. In so doing, the extent to which policy makers will have to contend with a new social cleavage along secular/non-secular lines will become apparent, and a hypothesis that has long been an afterthought to many a secularisation thesis will be thoroughly tested.
Dhaliwal, S. Goldsmiths, University of London Big Society and the Moral Economy of Religious Communitarianism: A View from Southall
As the austerity measures begin to bite, religious organisations are being offered additional spaces through which to gain legitimacy and consolidate their power within local areas. In contrast to the meta-narrative of secular imposition, this paper argues that there has been a de-secularisation of public spaces, especially of relations between ethnic minorities and the state. It critiques the central place afforded to religious organisations in the new communitarian logics of the Big Society, Good Society and Blue Labour. Without disregard, this critique seeks to move beyond points about the neo-liberal impetus to access the economic capital that religious organisations are able to accumulate through their congregations. Rather this paper will discuss empirical evidence collected as part of PhD research, to draw out confluences of interest between religious groups and the state. By focusing on Sikh mobilisations in Southall, I will consider the ability of Sikh groups to extend their power through state agendas and in turn provide hegemonic support for the various aspects of the state's policing functions. Moreover, I will explore four dimensions to the central place of religion within new discourses of governance: the reproductive capacity of religious communitarianism; its moral focus on rectifying behaviour and slowing the alleged breakdown of society; the emergence of 'election' as normative practice, where religious orders assume significance for the distribution of limited welfare resources; and the differential impact of communitarian governance for ethnic minority areas where religion already occupies a secure place in the politics of representation.
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ROGER STEVENS 06 Cardiff University
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