Decolonizing Religion and Peacebuilding

Auteurs

• Atalia Omer

Paramètres

• Religion

En savoir plus sur le livre

"The conversations among scholars intersecting with policy circles and networks around the topic of the global engagement with religion celebrate the plurality of religious and cultural traditions to the extent that they prove useful for the promotion of peace and development. But, if this is all that scholarship on religion and peace can do, there is a problem. When scholarship only responds to the question "What works?," it simply surrenders itself to the present. Delimiting the scholarly horizons to the demands and constraints of the present prevents a criticality without which new horizons cannot be imagined. Religion's occasional usefulness in peacebuilding does not necessarily mean justice-oriented outcomes. The praxis of religion and peace does not entail decolonial justice. It certainly does not disrupt global hegemonic constellations. On the contrary, a thin discourse concerning pluralism, or what I call the "harmony business," has been integral to western colonial discourse since the late nineteenth century. Rather than a prophetic irruption, religion and the practice of peace constitute a bureaucratic tool. Thus, a decolonial critique is a necessary step in dispelling the scaffolding of the harmony business that posits interreligious understanding as an instrument of peace and security and exposing it as the latest iteration of religion's long colonial history. An intersectionality that challenges the extraction of religion from the histories of racialization and its construction as a bounded and distinct sector is what I bring to the analysis of religion and the practices of peace"-- Provided by publisher

Achat du livre

• Année de publication: 2023
• Reliure: (souple)