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Religious renaissance in China today
Religiöse Renaissance im heutigen China
[journal article]
Abstract Since the beginning of the Reform Era in 1979, there has been a rapid growth and development of religious belief and practice in China. A substantial new scholarly literature has been generated in the attempt to document and understand this. This essay identifies the most important contributions to ... view more
Since the beginning of the Reform Era in 1979, there has been a rapid growth and development of religious belief and practice in China. A substantial new scholarly literature has been generated in the attempt to document and understand this. This essay identifies the most important contributions to that literature and discusses areas of agreement and controversy across the literature. Along with new data, new paradigms have developed to frame research on Chinese religions. The paradigm derived from C. K. Yang's classic work in the 1960s came from structural functionalism, which served to unite research in the humanities and social sciences. However, structural functionalism has been abandoned by the new generation of scholars. In the humanities, the most popular paradigm derives from Michel Foucault, but there are also scholars who use neo-Durkheimian and neo-Weberian paradigms. In the social sciences, the dominant paradigms tend to focus on state-society relations. None of these paradigms fully captures the complexity of the transformations happening in China. We recommend greater dialogue between the humanities and social sciences in search of more adequate theoretical frameworks for understanding Chinese religions today.... view less
Keywords
national state; Asia; Durkheim, E.; Foucault, M.; paradigm; complexity; social science; reform; religiousness; Weber, M.; humanities; structural functionalism; commodity value; religion; China; twentieth century
Classification
Philosophy, Ethics, Religion
Sociology of Religion
Method
theory application; descriptive study
Free Keywords
Social sciences; humanities; state-society conflicts; contemporary
Document language
English
Publication Year
2011
Page/Pages
p. 17-42
Journal
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, 40 (2011) 2
ISSN
1868-4874
Status
Published Version; peer reviewed
Licence
Creative Commons - Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works