#020, Race and Religion
RELIGION BITES PODCAST (RB020)
When we speak of religion are we in fact talking about race? Does the idea of ‘religion’ only make sense if we consider it as a particular instance of a racial formation?
A written text version of this can be found at:
My theoretical starting point here is this question:
When we speak of religion are we in fact talking about race?
Or to put this a little more carefully:
What I am trying to explore is the extent to which discourses on religion and religions (religious practices, religious differences, classifications, etc.) are a means of expressing discourses on race and racial differences.
Does the idea of ‘religion’ only make sense if we consider it as a particular instance of a racial formation?
I work from the assumption that categories of race and gender are fundamental to the analysis of culture and society, inasmuch as both categories (together with other categories, such as sexualities, ability, religion) are part of the constructions of reality in which people live.
So, to be clear, when I talk of both ‘race’ and ‘religion’, I am taking both of these as cultural terms — we can call them imagined, or constructed, or ideological. They are not intended to refer to any entities that are ‘sui generis’, that have a reality beyond the ways in which the terms are put to use.
My central question here is not so much whether these terms are connected, but to what extent — and if we can at all distinguish religion from race?
For the full text of this podcast, follow this link to the Religion Bites Blog.
