Postsecularity or Multiple Secularities? Plenary Session | XX ISA World Congress of Sociology, 2023

World Congress of Sociology 2023
Melbourne, Australia
International Sociological Association
#ISAWCS23 Plenary Session
Postsecularity or Multiple Secularities?
In the wake of the erosion of the explanatory capacity of secularization theory, the sociological notion of secularity has overlaid the political and constitutional idea of secularism. It has also dovetailed with the more anthropological (and philosophical) idea of ‘the secular.’ In analogy with secularity and as a way of extending critical studies of it, the idea of postsecularity is generally associated with a plurality of views and practices resulting not from the negation of secularity but rather from the rise of a comprehensive reflexivity on the various shades of secularity (and the ‘secularization process’ of old). As a result, the untenable essentialized idea of compact ‘religions’ is dissolved into recurrently returning waves of self-differentiation of ‘religious’ forms of action and organization. Postsecularity allows to appreciate such protean manifestations of religion through ever new organizational guises and ways of mobilization, in a variety of social settings and within different cultural traditions. In a more recent turn, the idea of postsecularity has been integrated (or critiqued) through a focus on ‘multiple secularities,’ a notion coined in the wake of the success of ‘multiple modernities.’ The appearance of multiple secularities in a variety of societies all over the world creates a tension with the idea of postsecularity while it contributes to expose the malleability of the nexus between religion and secularity. It has also the advantage of encouraging comparative investigations and more focused methodologies than postsecularity allows.
Panelists will discuss the pros and cons of such shifts from time-honored paradigms of secularization and their impact on broader sociological themes like social justice and critique of authoritarianism.
PRESENTATIONS:
- Reinventing Secularity As Civility? Islamic Articulations Linking Past and Present
Armando SALVATORE, McGill University, Canada
- Post-Secularity, Multiple Secularities and Post-Coloniality: Investigating the Indian Conundrum
Anindita CHAKRABARTI, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, India
- Post-Secularity or Multiple Secularities - What Is behind New Interpretations of the Religious Situation?
Monika WOHLRAB-SAHR, Universität Leipzig, Germany

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For your convenience, here is the timecode: 0:09 Introduction by Bandana PURKAYASTHA 1:07 Armando SALVATORE 21:42 Anindita CHAKRABARTI 37:42 Monika WOHLRAB-SAHR Don't forget to subscribe to ISAsociotube!