Abstract
Abstract Understandings of religion have been fundamentally transformed since the nineteenth century. The respective contradictions, ambiguities, continuities, and ruptures can be most comprehensively grasped when viewed against the background of global entanglements. For this purpose, the approach of global religious history proposes a range of theoretical and methodological tools. Its theoretical repertoire is largely informed by a critical engagement with poststructuralist epistemology and postcolonial perspectives embedded in a consistent genealogical approach. At the outset, it aims at bridging divisions, including those between postcolonial and global history, between disciplines such as religious studies and history, as well as between different area studies. This implies a theoretically robust reflexion of the question of what global entanglements mean in global religious history, along with the question of how to distinguish global religious history from approaches usually qualified by the prefix trans as, for example, in “transregional.” In this introduction, we offer an in-depth discussion of the theoretical foundations and methodological implications of global religious history.
Highlights
We propose how a global religious history might be systematically conceived, focusing on the study of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, witchcraft, and esotericism
In order to systematically put religious studies and global history into dialogue, we propose that a number of questions need to be addressed
What does it mean to write a global history? Second, what does entanglement mean and what is the epistemological place of global connections in global religious history? On this basis, we will be equipped to scrutinize the issue of “modernity” and the historiographical challenges of the colonial framework, whose ramifications can be observed up to the present day
Summary
Most scholars would agree that the notions at the center of this issue – global and religious – are of major relevance for one another’s meaning. Some scholars have argued that since the category of religion originated as a result of European expansion, it is inadequate for analyzing contexts outside of Europe and North America From this perspective, studying Islam or Hinduism as religions implies a Eurocentric perspective that cements global asymmetries and perpetuates epistemic violence (Fitzgerald 2000: xi, 135; Ahmed 2016: 178–197). We offer a specific epistemology and historiographical methodology to explore how meanings of religion were constantly negotiated within globally entangled contexts, without claiming that global religious history should be the only legitimate way to approach these issues
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