‘What it means to be truly human’

The postsecular hack of mindfulness

Datos Bibliográficos

ID18997610
AutoresAlp Arat (independent scholar, autor de correspondencia)
Año2017
Volumen64
Número2
Páginas167-179
Fecha de publicación2017-04-18
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Compass (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0037-7686 • E-ISSN: 1461-7404
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0037768617697390
OpenAlexW2606301507
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas44

The present ubiquity of meditation represents the latest ripple in the easternisation of the West. The mindfulness movement in particular has emerged as a popular expression of this contemplative turn. The vast majority of scholarly work on this subject rests on the assumption that mindfulness represents the culmination of the traditional trajectory of secularisation. Drawing on a discourse-analytic study of how contemporary mindfulness is constructed and made meaningful however, this article argues that these developments point towards a new modality of the secular. While the surface language of mindfulness operates in complete discursive isolation from the religious, its ontological foundation is nevertheless found to rest on a claim towards a transcendent whole. In the final analysis, this post secular hack of mindfulness signals a sacralisation of the secular with significant implications for the sociology of religion

Aesthetics · Contemplation · Culmination · Epistemology · Meditation · Mindfulness · Secularization · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Theology · Computer Science · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Religious studies · Workplace Spirituality and Leadership