Religion and Politics
How does religion influence or motivate political action in different societies across the world? What forms do religious politics take in different places? How do different religious groups engage the political sphere, and how do they understand these engagements? How do different states approach the question of religion in general, and how do they relate to particular religious groups? How is state secularism practiced by different states and how is it experienced differently by minority and majority religious groups?
These are urgent questions the world-over. For much of the 20th century, the social sciences and public discourse were dominated by the idea that religion was disappearing and losing importance. However, as the rise of new forms of public and political religion and the simultaneous growth in interest in older forms of religion across the globe in the past few decades demonstrates, religion is here to stay. Not only do religious commitments, practices and communities play a major role in the lives of a large number of the world’s population, but they also inform and drive political action in far-reaching ways.
Some possible ethnographic foci for an MA project that analyses intersections between religion and politics could be religious movements and their engagements with politics, political projects that claim a religious grounding or inspiration, or state engagements with specific religious groups.
Religion and Law
How is law constitutive of religion? How and why do particular religious practices or beliefs appear as legal problems in different legal systems? How do the rights of religious groups intersect or conflict with such other legally guaranteed rights as the right to free speech, the right to health, or minority rights?
The intersection of law and religion poses a broad range of fascinating but also important problems the answers to which often have far-reaching implications for the ways in which states relate to different religious traditions and communities. Looked at from the perspective of religious groups, the law is rarely a simple matter. Even in societies that claim to be secular, the law tends to variously privilege majority religious groups. At the same time, in many places the institutions of secular state law may exist side by side with religious legal traditions and institutions.
Some possible foci for an MA project on the intersections of religion and law could be the legal management of religion, legal debates on the limits and character of religious freedom, religious exemptions and accommodations, religious groups engagements with state law, or state engagements with religious law.