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- Convenors:
-
Jaap Timmer
(Macquarie University)
Christopher Houston (Macquarie University)
Send message to Convenors
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- Ligertwood 228
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 12 December, -, -
Time zone: Australia/Adelaide
Short Abstract:
Around the world, theocratic hopes are alive and thriving. This panel invites papers about how we might understand projects of theocratization or secularization in Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian contexts.
Long Abstract:
Around the world, theocratic hopes are alive and thriving. Participants in this panel are invited to think about how we might understand Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim secularisms, both in themselves and as responses or reactions to theocratic politics; or about projects of theocratization or secularization in Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian contexts. We seek to establish whether and how projects of theocracy and secularism may be as much a product of contextual and historical political tactics and strategies as revelation of deep-seated religious essences and differences (in Islam or in Christianity etc.).
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Monday 11 December, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper makes a distinction between two types of religious politics. Theocracies invoke the rule of God yet mediate this rule through humans. Anthropocracies valorize the rule of humans yet mediate this rule through God. Might these distinctions result in a reframing of research projects?
Paper long abstract:
There has never been a theocratic society or theocratic rule, if we take the meaning of the term literally. The rule of God in practice has always been devolved to humans. Accordingly there are two core features of any really existing theocracy - first its open acknowledgment that political rule, order, legality or legitimacy is derived from God; and secondly its social processes whereby humans through political institutions mediate God's rule, law, guidance or lore.
By contrast, there is another type of politics, one that also politically articulates God and humans, but which is radically different in intent to theocracy and in its defining political rationality. The opposite of theocracy is not secularity. Its opposite is anthropocracy, literally the rule of humans. Really existing anthropocratic regimes or episodes also comprise two core components. The first is an open acknowledgment that political rule, order, legality or legitimacy is humanly instituted. The second is the functioning of constant (or intermittent) institutions and social processes whereby God or the divine is instrumentalized and mobilized to shore-up or legitimize [some] humans' rule over others. This paper presents a case study of a political regime that might constitute an almost ideal-type of anthropocracy, the Kemalism of the Turkish Republic.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I discuss the institutionalistic/legalistic use of religion as being more prominent among Christian Papuans than it is among Muslims in West Papua (Indonesia). Christians are keen to establish a theocracy, Muslims appear more interested in producing historiographies.
Paper long abstract:
Among traditional Muslim Papuan communities along the western shores of the region, sizeable migrant communities throughout West Papua bring a distinct religious dynamic. Divisive perspectives on identity and belonging between Papuan and migrant communities tend to receive widespread attention only when they turn violent. The situation then gets portrayed in terms of a peaceful, innocent and victimised Christian Papuan minority versus a dominant and violent Islamic Indonesia supporters. Such inferences overlook the nature of the complex dynamics and historical background of Islam in Papua. In this paper I discuss the institutionalistic/legalistic use of religion as being more prominent among Christian Papuans than it is among Muslims. While many Christians are keen to identify Papua as a holy land and themselves as a Lost Tribe, Muslims appear more interested in developing religious infrastructure and producing historiographies that might establish them more clearly in between 'Indonesia' and (Christian) 'Papua'. Interestingly, the dynamics around religion and nation that I discuss all distance Papua from Melanesia as the issues are largely discussed in Indonesian nationhood terms.
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores the intersection between Baptist Christianity, politics and identity formations in the state of Nagaland (Northeast India) by analysing how Baptist Christian understandings of engaging with the world underpin theocratic political projects among the Naga.
Paper long abstract:
The paper explains how Baptist Christian understandings of engaging with the world, together with widely shared perceptions across Nagaland that the Naga are the chosen people of God whose mission it is to spread Christianity across Asia, translate into political projects which attempt to introduce theocracy in Nagaland and, consequently, across Asia. These projects are underpinned by the tacit understanding that the world should be ideologically guided by God's law as set out in the Bible, governed by God-fearing politicians and inhabited by God-fearing and obedient Christians. While state and church, religion and politics, are officially separated in Nagaland, as in the rest of India, Naga people have limited opportunities to practise this secularism because of the explicitly religious environment in which they live. The Baptist Church in Nagaland has assumed responsibility for enforcing God's will on earth, and its moral authority pervades all aspects of private and public life. The paper suggests that the theocratic projects that the Church attempts to advance by interfering actively in Naga politics can be best understood against the backdrop of local political history and the specific configurations of Baptist theology and practice in Nagaland.
Paper short abstract:
Our case study of Indonesia's Dakwah (predication) faculties enables a critical perspective toward dominant analytical tropes concerning Islamic education infrastructure: functionalization and systematization.
Paper long abstract:
Islamic education has presented special challenges to post-colonial governments in majority-Muslim countries. The priority for governments in countries such as Indonesia and Egypt has been to make progress in education in the secular sciences. Populations identify these fields as offering career opportunities. As a result, discourse around the place of Islamic education in state education in the post-colonial period has revealed a sometimes unproductive 'traditional versus contemporary' dichotomy. Interestingly, academic analysis of Islamic education in post-colonial states has entrenched this dichotomy. It has done this through the widespread uptake of two analytical characterisations: functionalisation and objectification (aka: systematisation). Through their de-authenticating effects, these characterisations contribute to the conception, supported by traditional Islamic elites in countries such as Indonesia, that Islam education is difficult to integrate into contemporary educational infrastructure. This paper is a case study of the academic outputs of Indonesia's Dakwah faculties, as well as the characteristic concept of dakwah on which they were founded. The findings suggest that state-supported Islamic education will succeed when it satisfies the same output measurements as are applied to secular sciences: performance management, quality accreditation etc. Moving beyond the de-authenticating characterisations of functionalisation and systematisation, these evaluative mechanisms point to the viability of Islamic education in the post-colonial present.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will explore how the Sydney's 5Rhythms practice is constructed in a seemingly 'secular' but historically Christian context of Sydney. As dancers' bricolage of ritual and symbols are patterned by wider logics of consumerism and 'alternative' culture.
Paper long abstract:
5Rhythms emerged from the social and cultural shifts in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. From an etic perspective, it is a bricolage of Eastern and Western psychological and religious traditions. From the dancer's perspective these origins are implicit, the dancers practice with the intent to be embodied, to feel, express and to meditate. The practice is cathartic and has therapeutic value. Ecstatic and affective it helps to loosen gestures and comportment set by everyday life, illness and trauma. Overtime the embodied process encourages dancers to re-organise and confirm relations to their body, the world and others. This paper will explore how the 5Rhythms practice is constructed in a seemingly 'secular' but historically Christian context of Sydney. Further, this paper will show that the dancers' bricolage of ritual and symbols are also patterned by wider logics of consumerism and 'alternative' culture.
Paper short abstract:
In this paper I discuss the active role of the Turkish State and government in reinvigorating Islamic art practices in Turkey over the last decade, and related discourses originating from myriad other sources that connect those art practices to spirituality.
Paper long abstract:
The teaching and learning of Islamic art practices have experienced a major revival in Turkey over the last decade, related in some way to a more general application of Islamic cultural politics by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Having survived a hostile regime in the pristine period of 'High Kemalism' (1923-50), today art traditions such as Islamic calligraphy, water marbling (ebru) and 'Sufi music' are in high demand in Turkey's major cities. A range of factors contributes to this revival, including for many participants a search for the 'spiritual.' In this paper I discuss both the active role of the Turkish State and government in reinvigorating this cultural/artistic field (through its incorporation of these visual and sonic practices into its tourism industry and nationalist ideology), and related discourses originating from myriad other sources that connect those art practices to spirituality. The investigation of these processes reveals how the public lives of these art practices are configured by a complex intertwining of socio-cultural, economic and political processes that shape their meaning.
Paper short abstract:
Ysyakh, traditional summer festival of Sakha people has recently gone significant transformations. Reflecting on an ancient carving of the festival, made by a Sakha craftsman 150 year ago, the paper analyses the festival's transformations and discusses the power of an object to tell story.
Paper long abstract:
Yhyakh is a traditional summer festival celebrated by native people in the region of Sakha (Yakutia), Siberia. This festival has gone tremendous transformations from a pagan ritual of giving offerings to deities, to an ideological celebration under the watchful eye of the Communist regime, to a large spectacular show of wealth and proud ethnic identity.
In the centre of this paper is a unique model depicting the festival. Carved out of mammoth tusk circa 1867 by a Sakha craftsman, the model, belonging to the British Museum collection, depicts in miniature various activities that are central to the celebration of yhyakh. These activities include making ritual offerings to the spirits, athletics contests, and making kymys (a drink of fermented mare's milk), all significant elements of the festivities.
In 2015 Sakha people were able to see the model displayed in Yakutsk where it was on a loan at a temporary exhibition at the local National Museum of Arts. The paper reflects on how Sakha people view historic artefacts and the role such artefacts play in revitalizing Sakha artistic and cultural traditions. The paper also highlights how the model's display prompted recollections about transformations yhyakh has undergone within living memory. In so doing the paper reveals the power and potential of historic artefacts to narrate a story.
Paper short abstract:
The making and unmaking of theocracies and secularisms make for some perplexing problems for policymakers in the constantly shifting field of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE).
Paper long abstract:
The declaration of the imagined theocracy of the Islamic State in 2014 - as a prophesied sign of the end of days - would provide a powerful motivation for Australians sympathetic to the ISIS cause to pack up and join the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, according to many national security commentators at the time. The subsequent diminution of ISIS and its theocratic hopes has now focussed the concern on young, frustrated but highly motivated ISIS-inspired extremists for whom Australia's imagined secularism is a direct affront to the will of God. The making and unmaking of these theocracies and secularisms make for some pretty perplexing problems for policymakers in the constantly shifting field of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). CVE practitioners generally accept that violent extremism is a social problem, long before it is a national security problem, but dealing with theocratic hopes and 'end of days' eschatologies is not something that social policy agencies, youth workers and case managers, corrective services staff or police typically have to contend with. Enter the anthropologist of religion.