Comparing 'religious diversities' Issues, perspectives and problems
Obadia, Lionel (2017)
Obadia, Lionel
The Donner Institute, Åbo Akademi
2017
Kuvaus
Lionel Obadia
PhD, Professor in Anthropology at the University of Lyon 2, France, specializing in religious studies, anthropology and the sociology of religion. After gaining a PhD on Buddhism in France and in the West, he has studied Buddhism, shamanism and witchcraft in Asia, mainly Nepal. He has recently conducted research on Jewish Messianic movements in Europe, the US and Israel, and football (soccer) in a religious perspective in France. He is the author of ten books, among them La marchandisation de Dieu (2013), Anthropologie des religions (2007), Religion (2004), Sorcellerie (2004), Le bouddhisme en Occident (2007), and The Economics of Religion with Donald Wood (Emerald, 2011) and more than one hundred chapters and articles in French, English, Spanish, Chinese and German.
PhD, Professor in Anthropology at the University of Lyon 2, France, specializing in religious studies, anthropology and the sociology of religion. After gaining a PhD on Buddhism in France and in the West, he has studied Buddhism, shamanism and witchcraft in Asia, mainly Nepal. He has recently conducted research on Jewish Messianic movements in Europe, the US and Israel, and football (soccer) in a religious perspective in France. He is the author of ten books, among them La marchandisation de Dieu (2013), Anthropologie des religions (2007), Religion (2004), Sorcellerie (2004), Le bouddhisme en Occident (2007), and The Economics of Religion with Donald Wood (Emerald, 2011) and more than one hundred chapters and articles in French, English, Spanish, Chinese and German.
Tiivistelmä
This paper aims at reopening the debate regarding ‘religious diversity’ in religious studies. A review of (recent or ancient) literature demonstrates that we have not finished with the complexity of the issue of ‘diversity’, whether in academic or social debates. Furthermore, diversity must not only be taken seriously, but impels us towards a comparative methodology in order to highlight the variations of the forms, dynamics, effects and contexts of diversity. As such, Asian countries represent a very interesting location for an epistemological deconstruction of the Western-style and monotheistic-centred concept of ‘religious diversity’, as it is often used in religious studies and the social sciences.