Beschreibung
Assumptions of increasing secularization have been called
into question across the globe but under the socialist
variants of modernity traditional forms of religious belief
and practice were subject to quite specific forms of
repression in favour of `scientific atheism’. What is the
legacy of this socialist experience for the postsocialist
era? How is religion mobilized in the public sphere to
support assertions of ethnic identity and the building of
nations and states? In the private sphere, how does religion
help persons to cope with uncertainty and dislocation? What
has been the impact of external influences, including
pressures to implement religious human rights as well as the
missionising efforts of modernist, `universalizing’ faiths,
both Christian and Muslim?
The authors explore new configurations of local, national
and global religious communities through ethnographic
studies from two regions, Central Asia and East- Central
Europe. The main focus is on the consequences of changes in
the sphere of religion for generalized civility, which is
understood minimally as the acceptance of diverse beliefs
and practices in everyday social life.
