Why Scholars of Religion Must Investigate the Corporate Form

Bibliographic Data

ID8205223
AuthorsLevi Mclaughlin (0000-0001-9590-0631, North Carolina State University), Aike P Rots (0000-0003-1280-878X, University of Oslo), Jolyon Baraka Thomas (0009-0005-7395-6390, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA), Chika Watanabe (0000-0003-4905-3798, University of Manchester)
Year2020
Volume88
Issue3
Pages693-725
Publication date2020-09-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Academy of Religion (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7189 • E-ISSN: 1477-4585
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/jaarel/lfaa041
OpenAlexW2966623837
LanguageEN
Citations received18
References cited130

A growing body of research describes connections between religion and economic activity through the language of commodification and marketization. Although this scholarship rightly challenges the assumption that religion is or should be divorced from worldly concerns, it still relies on distinctions between religion and the economy as isolable, reified entities. Rejecting this binary approach as untenable, we argue that studying the corporate form enriches the academic study of religion by providing concrete examples of how people create institutions and how organizations turn human bodies into resources while also fostering individuals’ devotion to collective agendas. Attention to the corporate form enables us to keep money and power in view as we trace historical formations and current manifestations of religious organizations. We investigate Japanese genealogies of the corporate form to elucidate some generalizable principles for how nonprofit religions and for-profit companies alike generate missions, families, individuals, and publics

Commodification · Economics · Economy · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Marketization · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Power (physics) · Profit (economics) · Public relations · Publics · Religious organization · Scholarship · Sociology · TRACE (psycholinguistics) · Law · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Religion and Society Interactions · Religion, Society, and Development

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access