Voicing The Self In Postsecular Society: A Psychological Perspective On Meaning-Making And Collective Identities

Abstract

Postsecular society, with its increasing complexity of religious-symbolic communication due to the deinstitutionalization of religion on the one hand and the hybrid mix of religious-economic-political activities on the other, also calls for a psychological examination. The perspective taken in this chapter is that of psychological identity theory . The author introduces the theory of the dialogical self , developed by the Dutch personality and cultural psychologist Hubert Hermans, as an excellent tool to throw light on identity processes in a global, culturally heterogeneous context. She first sketches the main lines of the theory of the dialogical self (1). Next, she discusses the complex task of combining global and local identities (2), and investigate religion as a defensive form of localization (3). She concludes with some remarks on the usefulness of the theory of the dialogical self for researching religion in postsecular societies (4). Keywords: Hubert Hermans; Postsecular society; psychological identity theory; religious-symbolic communication