Religion in neoliberal times: The global spread of marketization, implications for religion, and future research directions

Abstract

Marketization is a profound force transforming societies, including how people relate to and practice religion. Drawing from a synthesis of interdisciplinary studies, we approach marketization as a megatrend, explicating how its global spread beyond the advanced economies of the United States and Western Europe is leading to significant changes in religion and its marketplace articulations. We identify four specific ways in which marketization’s global spread influences religion: detraditionalization, re-publicization, dedifferentiation, and deterritorialization. We map these four areas of influence at the intersection of religion and consumption. In so doing, we identify several under-theorized areas in consumer research and offer six future research directions: (1) new non-institutional stages of religious performance, (2) transhumanism as a new religion, (3) new religious authorities, (4) transnational networks of religious service movements, (5) prosperity religion in non-Western and non-Christian contexts, and (6) resistance to marketization. We advance marketing theory by drawing attention to the megatrend of globalizing marketization that we argue should inform the future of the study of religion in consumer research.