Religious diversity: Comparative views East and West
Issues of diversity have become crucial all around the world for political and social reasons. Modernization and globalization has produced more fragmentation and creativity in religious landscapes, in facilitating the diffusion, borrowing and mixing of elements originating in different religious systems.
While these forces are of a global nature, the effect is locally specific. Diversity in the West assumes different forms than in the East. This complicates comparing religious diversity in Asia and Europe: do we have the same ideas of diversity, and the same language to describe it? To what extent are the cultural and political contexts comparable? Can diversity within Western monotheism meaningfully be related to diversity within Asian cosmological religions and state religions?
This conference will discuss such issues on the basis of ethnographic evidence and empirical case studies.
This conference is organised by Lionel Obadia, USIAS Fellow 2014, in collaboration with DRES (UMR 7354, CNRS) and MISHA (CNRS).
The conference is open to the general public, upon inscription.
