Area 3 "Religion and politics
in the contemporary world".
Hosted by Dilek Yankaya and Alix Philippon
This area is part of a long tradition of research into religion as an object of political study in the academic field in Aix-en-Provence. Its aim is to contribute to the renewal of research on the forms of interaction or overlap between religion and politics. By considering the two notions in an extensive and non-exclusive sense, as two modalities of the social construction of reality, this axis not only puts into perspective the boundaries that are supposed to separate them, but also questions the way in which these separations are constructed by bringing together disciplinary approaches in social and human sciences and by deploying a comparative and transnational approach. Contrary to the long-dominant paradigm of secularisation, religion is constantly changing and is a constant factor in the political organisation of societies and international relations. Since the middle of the 20th century, it has been recomposed in new ways of believing and has reinvested the public space and the political field in many ways and at different scales.
Axis members
The research carried out in this area focuses on the constantly changing ways in which religion, as a logic of social stratification, a belief system, a set of practices and/or a social organisation, plays a part in the making of politics (production, negotiation and contestation of norms and ideas, construction of political identities, design and internationalisation of religious public policies, changes in social conflict, formation of protest and/or conservative social movements, etc.). The heuristic interest of the religious object is that it calls for a dialogue between numerous literatures, such as the sociology of public action, controversies, social movements, the State and the international. This area of research therefore aims to analyse the processes of politicisation of religion and depoliticisation by religion, both from above, as a category of public action and an object of government, and from below, through collective action, mobilisation and protest. As such, this area focuses on religious actors or practices that are not necessarily oriented towards the political field in appearance, but which are intimately involved in the configuration of political logics and legitimacies according to the issues in question (Unidentified Political Objects -UPIOs: festivals, pilgrimages, miracles, etc.). Thus, rather than religions themselves, this area focuses on the relationship with religion, focusing on the actors and their practices through the prism of the minority or majority status they occupy in specific political and historical contexts. Although the focus has traditionally been on Islam and the Arab and Muslim world, the research area is also interested in all forms of religion and religiosity, regardless of location.
Researchers in this area examine these factors from four main angles:
Key words: authority, legitimacy, norms, beliefs, identity-building, conflicts, politicisation, development aid, religious public policy, politics from below, festivals, secularism, secularisation, deregulation, individualisation, territorialisation, places of worship, Islam, the Arab and Muslim world.
