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We’ve Got to Draw the Line Somewhere: An Exploration of Boundaries that Define Locations of Religious Identity

London School of Economics, e.barker{at}lse.ac.uk

English

Given the theme of the ISSR Conference for which I was invited to prepare the paper, "Religion and Society: Challenging Boundaries", I found myself asking what kind of boundaries are likely to be associated with different kinds of locations of religious identity, one, but only one, of which would be based on the nation. This involved: (1) contrasting the sociological relativism espoused by Mary Douglas with the Platonic essentialism associated with many believers; (2) considering the variety to be found between different types of boundaries; (3) constructing an ideal typology of some possible locations of religious identity and (4) hypothesizing about variations in the types of boundaries that each of the types of locations might exhibit.

French

Le thème de la conférence de la SISR pour laquelle j'ai été invitée à préparer la communication 'Religion et société: les frontières en question', m'a conduite à me demander quelles frontières pourraient être associées à différents types de localisation de l'identité religieuse. La nation ne constitue qu'un seul d'entre eux. Ceci a impliqué: (1) de mettre en contraste le relativisme sociologique adopté par Mary Douglas et l'essentialisme platonicien partagé par de nombreux croyants; (2) de prendre en compte la diversité des différents types de frontières que l'on peut trouver; (3) de construire une typologie des localisations possibles de l'identité religieuse et (4) d'imaginer les variations au sein des types de frontières dont chacun des types de localisation sera susceptible de faire preuve.

Key Words: boundary construction • identity • national religions • negotiability • religious location • social construction

Social Compass, Vol. 53, No. 2, 201-213 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0037768606064329


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