Towards a Poststructuralist Approach to Religion

Abstract

This working paper presents a poststructuralist approach to religion studies and discusses its usefulness in an exemplary way by engaging with FIW working paper no. 11 on labeling processes of migrants in contemporary Europe. The first part reads the case studies as investigations into how religion is transformed as a result of different negotiation processes. From this perspective the analytical category of labeling demonstrates the shortcomings of essentialist conceptualizations as presupposed in the notion of multiple religious identities. At the same time, it compels us to look for a framework that allows to theorize religion as a product of demarcation and identity making, embedded in a context of power asymmetries, which owe themselves to global entanglements. The second part argues that a post-foundationalist approach that combines poststructuralist hegemony theories, such as those suggested by Ernesto Laclau and Judith Butler, with insights from global history studies as proposed by Michael Bergunder, offers such a framework.