Identity Turn: Managing Decolonialization and Identity Politics in the Study of Religion

Abstract

The academic study of religion, with its concepts and theories that originate in a Western, Protestant context, has justly been criticized in postmodern and identity-focused discourses, in recent years under the umbrella of decolonization and social justice activism. It has been suggested that allegedly universally-applicable theories and methodologies are relativized and revealed as particularized Eurocentrism in the hegemonic representations of “white” or “Western” power regimes. While acknowledging such reorientations in the philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history of religion, this article also critically investigates and discusses the “critical study of religion.” It is suggested that the revisionist deconstruction emphasized by contemporary identity perspectives, with their discourses of difference and re-essentialized understandings of religion and culture, are not only problematic as theoretical orientations. Radical identity politics also imply methodological constraints on the academic study of religion, where comparison, analytical categories, and reflexive emic–etic distinctions must remain key factors.

What Is Happening to Religious Studies? Six Narratives

“…A telling example of this divergence in the analysis of the situation is a book review of McCutcheon's The Discipline of Religion (2003) by my (now retired) colleague Håkan Rydving, who writes that McCutcheon is preaching to the converted and finds his general portrayal of the state of the discipline seriously misleading (Rydving 2006); if this was plausible in 2006, it is ever more so at present. 4 On identity politics in religious studies, see Borup (2021). 5 Comprehensive works on religion and migration have recently been published almost simultaneously by German and Swedish scholars (Baumann and Nagel 2023;Nordin and Otterbeck 2023).…”

Indigenous Religious Traditions and the Decolonial Turn in Religious Studies

“…From the start, Borup's exploration of the “identity politics” operating in the academy is confusing. He writes that “Gender studies, black studies, Afro‐American studies, queer studies, intersectional studies, and Critical Race Theory have criticized the privileged positions of whites and men, just as Orientalism, postcolonialism, and decolonial studies have questioned the skewed power structures based on Western colonialism and Eurocentrism” (Borup 2021, 2), lumping these disparate fields together with little to no differentiation but also reducing them to critiques of “whites and men.” While Gender studies, black studies, Afro‐American studies, and queer studies may use an intersectional analysis (an analytic born out of Critical Race Theory) to understand the overlapping forms of asymmetrical power embedded in gender and race, Critical Race Theory would help us understand how these asymmetrical relations operate structurally, for instance, in laws, social policies, or media. Framing these analytics as critiques of individuals (whites and men) versus critiques of structural inequities only serves to obscure power, namely the continued asymmetrical relations operating between the West and the rest.…”

“…Framing these analytics as critiques of individuals (whites and men) versus critiques of structural inequities only serves to obscure power, namely the continued asymmetrical relations operating between the West and the rest. Borup goes on to describe decolonization as another essentialization in the form of identity politics (Borup 2021, 11), which again reduces critiques of structures to personal or community grievances. He argues that these critiques of power flout normative scholarly practice through their thoroughly subjective lens, saying:

The new trends in identity‐based activist scholarship focus more explicitly on the necessity of subjectivist, insider activism, some of which may itself be seen as—or be compared to—religious movements.

…”

“…Such “religionist” approaches that celebrate religious identity and diversity are accepted with fewer reservations outside the academic study of religion, and typically embraced by anthropologists who have “gone native,” or activist race and gender scholars who are not necessarily concerned with possible conflicts of first‐, second‐, or third‐order interpretative perspectives. (Borup 2021, 13)In his assessment, these analytic approaches are not only activism (not scholarship), but worse, they are “religionist,” meaning that they are doing religion and thus theological versus producing research from a (mythical) neutral position. It is unclear if these misreadings are intentional, but he does refer to this work as “woke scholarship” (Borup 2021, 9) several times, which is a right‐wing dog whistle for ideologies that critique power and, thus, are a threat to the status quo.…”

“…(Borup 2021, 13)In his assessment, these analytic approaches are not only activism (not scholarship), but worse, they are “religionist,” meaning that they are doing religion and thus theological versus producing research from a (mythical) neutral position. It is unclear if these misreadings are intentional, but he does refer to this work as “woke scholarship” (Borup 2021, 9) several times, which is a right‐wing dog whistle for ideologies that critique power and, thus, are a threat to the status quo. In this sense, it is troubling that such a poor reading of these analytics with a clear political agenda against equitable relations was published at all.…”