عنوان

The Impossibility of Liberal Secularism:

Number

LA121556

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

The Impossibility of Liberal Secularism:

General Material Designation

[Article]

Other Title Information

Religious (In)tolerance, Spirituality, and Not-Religion

First Statement of Responsibility

J. Brent Crosson

Place of Publication, Distribution, etc.

Leiden

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

Brill

Text of Note

This article re-thinks the problem of religious (in)tolerance by analyzing the 2015 deportation of three "Hindu priests" from a Caribbean nation for the practice of obeah. Defined popularly as "witchcraft" or "African tradition," obeah was first criminalized as the alleged inspiration for the largest slave uprising of the eighteenth century British Caribbean. I argue that the recent deportations in a nation that constitutionally enshrines freedom of conscience foregrounds some of the foundational limits of liberal secularism. I trace a genealogy of liberalism to critique the secular ideal of the "freedom from difference." I suggest that attempts to invoke "spirituality" as a more inclusive idiom for denigrated forms of "not-religion" such as obeah extend rather than eliminate these limits of liberal secularism. I close by drawing some parallels with anti-Muslim nationalism in the u.s. and suggest some ways of thinking about a trinary formation of religion, not-religion, and secular power in modern nation-states. This article re-thinks the problem of religious (in)tolerance by analyzing the 2015 deportation of three "Hindu priests" from a Caribbean nation for the practice of obeah. Defined popularly as "witchcraft" or "African tradition," obeah was first criminalized as the alleged inspiration for the largest slave uprising of the eighteenth century British Caribbean. I argue that the recent deportations in a nation that constitutionally enshrines freedom of conscience foregrounds some of the foundational limits of liberal secularism. I trace a genealogy of liberalism to critique the secular ideal of the "freedom from difference." I suggest that attempts to invoke "spirituality" as a more inclusive idiom for denigrated forms of "not-religion" such as obeah extend rather than eliminate these limits of liberal secularism. I close by drawing some parallels with anti-Muslim nationalism in the u.s. and suggest some ways of thinking about a trinary formation of religion, not-religion, and secular power in modern nation-states.

Date of Publication

2018

Physical description

37-55

Title

Method & Theory in the Study of Religion

Volume Number

30/1

International Standard Serial Number

1570-0682

Subject Term

anthropology of secularism

Subject Term

Caribbean and Latin America

Subject Term

colonialism

Subject Term

freedom of religion

Subject Term

liberalism

Subject Term

obeah

Subject Term

religious (in)tolerance

Subject Term

U.S. Islam

J. Brent Crosson

Call Number

10.1163/15700682-12341411

Electronic name

p

[Article]

275578

a

Y