(De)Globalization, the Global Imaginary, and Religious Narratives

A Theoretical Framework and the East Asia Litmus Test

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3213624
AutoresB Lakshmi Bai (Fudan University, autor correspondente), Beilei Bai
Ano2025
Volume16
Fascículo1
Páginas75
Data de publicação2025-01-13
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoReligions (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
EditoraMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel16010075
OpenAlexW4406327050
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas44

Faced with the twin challenges of globalization and de-globalization, do religions exercise agency in these trends? In other words, do they give shape to them, or are they rather shaped by them? If the influence is reciprocal, how should the process behind this be described? This article sets itself two tasks. Firstly, it endeavors to develop a theoretical framework by which to conceptualize the question just posed. Secondly, it applies this framework to the case of China and, more cursorily, to the East Asian context in general. I start my analysis by approaching "globalization" as a shared vision of the world, referred to, in this article, as the "global imaginary". The recent erosion of the latter has led to "deglobalization", a set of narratives that remain correlated to the globalist storyline they confront. Central to the topic is that fact that the crisis experienced by the global imaginary affects the interplay between its secular and religious dimensions. The secular imaginary had fostered a homogenous narrative that has caused both ontological and epistemological crises. The resurgence of religious discourse within the narratives of deglobalization is to be understood as part and parcel of competing interpretations of the global modernization process, since the latter obeys both secular and religious forces. Focusing in the second part of this article on trends and representations proper to China in its regional context enables us to better assess how the globalization and deglobalization narratives intermingle in religious and secular dimensions in a way that reshapes each of them

Globalization · Modernization theory · Narrative · Political science · Social science · Sociology · The Imaginary · Chinese history and philosophy · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions