Religious Minorities Online

Main Editors:

Erica Baffelli (The University of Manchester)

Alexander van der Haven (University of Bergen)

Michael Stausberg (University of Bergen)

Editorial Board:

Carole Cusack (The University of Sydney)

Rosalind Hackett (University of Tennessee)　

Titus Hjelm (University of Helsinki)

Knut A. Jacobsen (University of Bergen)

Norihito Takahashi (Toyo University)

Introduction – Religious Minorities: Conceptual Perspectives

Michael Stausberg, Alexander Van Der Haven and Erica Baffelli

Abstract

This essay proposes definitions of key terms such as ‘minoritization’, ‘majoritization’, and ‘religious minority’, and problematizes standard criteria of identification of religious minorities while also advocating for an understanding of religious minorities as dynamic, processual, relational, contextual, situational, and intersectional. By doing this, it also warns against homogenizing representations of religious minorities and addresses minorities within minorities. It presents several important distinctions among and within religious minorities in terms of size, location, origin, legitimacy, recognition, social position, and self-perceptions. The essay discusses the mechanisms that turn assemblages of people into minorities and different criteria and strategies that establish such social formations as ‘religious minorities.’ This includes processes of recognition and non-recognition by societies and different forms of minorities (‘wild’ and ‘tame’ ones). The essay historicizes the emergence of the category and the problem of ‘religious minorities’ in the context of colonialism, modern conceptions of the nation-state, democracy, and international politics. Last but not least, it reflects on the importance of religious minorities as a theme for research, and as a lens for understanding the dynamics of religion in society.

Article

The term ‘religious minorities’ (or some vernacular equivalent) is part of the common lexicon of political language; in many countries this and similar terminologies such as ‘minority religions’, ‘minor religions’, or ‘minority religious groups’ are used in everyday talk, in self-identifications, and in processes of othering. The term is also used to celebrate ‘diversity’, ‘pluralism’, ‘multiculturalism’, and similar ideas. Majority/minority tropes are also invoked by people who are numerically a majority, but claim to have lost their predominance in a society or remember their past, real or imagined, as a minority; mobilizing an understanding of being ‘a threatened majority’ is a typical ingredient of what Arjun Appadurai calls “predatory identities”—namely, such identities “whose social construction and mobilization require the extinction of other, proximate social categories” (Appadurai 2006, 51). In contexts where homogeneity is emphasized, such as nationalist discourses, minorities can be perceived as potentially disruptive and dangerous, and feature prominently in conspiracy narratives. Similarly, the fear of a perceived threat implies dichotomised views about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ minorities. This essay offers a discussion of conceptual perspectives on religious minorities; we will begin by proposing definitions of key terms.

Read the Introduction in full here: