The ‘trans’ in the study of religion

The current phase of globalization has dramatically exposed the limitations of traditional approaches to religion. Religion is very much a key ingredient of globalization, travelling with transnational migrants and itinerant religious entrepreneurs and being beamed globally through electronic media, from TV to the Internet. Instead, ‘each religion is a flowing together of currents – some enforced as “orthodox” by institutions – traversing multiple fields, where other religions, other transverse confluences, also cross, thereby creating new spiritual streams’. In other words, a networks approach affords a richer exploration of the ‘trans’ aspects of religion – that is, its inherent but often constrained dynamicity within and across scales. Finally, Tweed’s hydrodynamics highlights the spatial dimensions of religion in relation to mobility, opening up the possibility of studying the roles it plays in the contested construction, maintenance, and crossing of local, national, regional, and transnational spaces

Anthropological Studies and Insights · Psychology · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion

• Introduction

  Open Access•A Appadurai•Social Life of Things•1986

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