Abstract
The chapter offers an overview of the relationship between globalization and the study of religion. It highlights the particular significance of some themes that have shaped the field’s evolution. These include: the inter-disciplinary nature and institutional frameworks of the study of religion, the challenges of Orientalism, Eurocentrism and parochialism for the evolution of the field, and the failures of post-World War II secularization theory. The above have contributed to the emergence of globalization as a distinct problematic in the field of religion. The basic propositions and ideas concerning the relationship between religion and globalization are reviewed, with special emphasis on globalization’s geographical dimension and its connections with transnational religion and migration. Emergent themes for future research on religion and globalization are also presented. These include: the revitalization of the history and religion relationship, the emergence of the problematic on culture and religion, and the consolidation of global-local or glocal religion.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agadjanian, A., & Roudometof, V. (2005). Eastern orthodoxy in a global age: Preliminary considerations. In V. Roudometof, A. Agadjanian, & J. Pankhurst (Eds.), Eastern orthodoxy in a global age: Tradition meets the 21st century (pp. 1–26). Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press.
Albrow, M. (1997). The global age: State and society beyond modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Altglas, V. (Ed.). (2010). Religion and globalization: Critical concepts in social studies (Vol. I–IV). London: Routledge.
Appadurai, A. (1995). The production of locality. In R. Fardon (Ed.), Counterworks: Managing the diversity of knowledge (pp. 204–225). London: Routledge.
Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Arjomand, S. A. (2004). Islam, political change and globalization. Thesis Eleven, 76, 9–28.
Asad, T. (1993). Genealogies of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Asad, T. (2003). Formations of the secular: Christianity, Islam, modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Bastian, J. P., Champion, F., & Rousselet, K. (Eds.). (2001). La Globalisation du Religieux. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Baudrillard, J. (1988). America. London: Verso.
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society. London: Sage.
Beck, U. (2000). What is globalization? London: Polity.
Beckford, J. (2003). Social theory and religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Berger, P. (2002). Globalization and religion. The Hedgehog Review, 4(2), 7–20.
Berger, P., & Huntington, S. P. (Eds.). (2002). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Berger, P., Sacks, J., Martin, D., & Weiming, T. (1999). The desecularization of the world: Resurgent religion and world politics. Washington, DC/Grand Rapids: Ethics and Public Policy Center and William B. Eerdmans.
Berger, P., Davie, G., & Fokas, E. (2008). Religious America, secular Europe? A theme and variations. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Besecke, K. (2005). Seeing invisible religion: Religion as a societal conversation about transcendent meaning. Sociological Theory, 23(2), 179–196.
Beyer, P. (1994). Religion and globalization. London: Sage.
Beyer, P. (2006). Religions in global society. London: Sage.
Beyer, P. (2007). Globalization and glocalization. In J. A. Beckford & N. J. Demerath III (Eds.), The Sage handbook of the sociology of religion (pp. 98–117). London: Sage.
Beyer, P. (2013). Questioning the secular/religious divide in a post-Westphalian world. International Sociology, 28, 663–679.
Beyer, P., & Beaman, L. (Eds.). (2007). Religion, globalization and culture. Leiden: Brill.
Bhargavaa, R. (2014). How secular is European secularism? European Societies, 16(3), 329–336.
Bjorgo, T. (1997). ‘The invaders’, ‘the traitors’ and ‘the resistance movement’: The extreme right’s conceptualization of opponents and self in Scandinavia. In T. Modood & P. Werbner (Eds.), The politics of multiculturalism in the New Europe: Racism, identity and community (pp. 54–72). London: Zed Books.
Brubaker, R. (2012). Religion and nationalism: Four approaches. Nations and Nationalism, 18, 2–20.
Bruce, S. (2011). Secularization: In defense of an unfashionable theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burchardt, M., & Wohlrab-Sahr, M. (2013). Multiple secularities: Religion and modernity in the global age. International Sociology, 28(6), 605–611.
Burke, P. (2009). Cultural hybridity. London: Polity.
Calhoun, C., Juergensmeyer, M., & Van Antwerpen, J. (2011). Rethinking secularism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Colin Campbell, C. (2007). The easternization of the west: A thematic account of cultural change in the modern Era. London: Routledge.
Campbell Van Pelt, G. (2007). Religion and phases of globalization. In P. Beyer & L. Beaman (Eds.), Religion, globalization and culture (pp. 281–304). Leiden: Brill.
Casanova, J. (1994). Public religions in the modern world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Casanova, J. (2001). Religion, the New Millennium, and globalization, (2000 presidential address). Sociology of Religion, 62(4), 415–442.
Casanova, J. (2006). Rethinking secularization: A global comparative perspective. The Hedgehog Review, 8(1–2), 7–22.
Cava, R. D. (2001). Transnational religions: The Roman Catholic Church in Brazil and the Orthodox Church in Russia. Sociology of Religion, 62(4), 535–550.
Chakrabarty, D. (1992). Provincializing Europe: Post-coloniality and the critique of history. Cultural Studies, 6(3), 337–357.
Cherry, S. M., & Ebaugh, H. R. (Eds.). (2014). Global religious movements across borders: Sacred service. Furham: Ashgate.
Christiano, K. (2008). Clio goes to church: Revisiting and revitalizing historical thinking in the sociology of religion. Sociology of Religion, 69(1), 1–28.
Crawford, R. (2001). What is religion? Introducing the study of religion. London: Routledge.
Csordas, T. J. (2009). Transnational transcendence: Essays on religion and globalization. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Curanovic, A. (2007). The attitude of the Moscow Patriarchate towards other orthodox churches. Religion, State and Society, 35(4), 301–318.
Danforth, L. (1995). The Macedonian conflict: Ethnic nationalism in a transnational world. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Danforth, L. (2000). Ecclesiastical nationalism and the Macedonian question in the Australian Diaspora. In V. Roudometof (Ed.), The Macedonian question: Culture, historiography, politics (pp. 25–54). Boulder: East European Monographs.
Davie, G. (1994). Religion in Britain since 1945: Believing without belonging. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Davie, G. (2002). Europe: The exceptional case. London: Darton, Longman and Todd.
Davis, N. J., & Robinson, R. V. (2012). Claiming society for God: Religious movements and social welfare. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Dawson, A. (2012). Santo Daime: A new world religion. London: Bloomsbury.
Demetriou, C., & Roudometof, V. (2014). The history of historical-comparative methods in sociology. In P. Leavy (Ed.), Oxford handbook of qualitative research (pp. 43–61). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dessì, U. (2013). Japanese religions and globalization. London: Routledge.
Dobbelaere, K. (2000). From religious sociology to sociology of religion: Towards globalisation? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 39, 433–447.
Ebaugh, H. R., & Chafetz, J. S. (2002). Religion across borders: Transnational immigrant networks. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Edgell, P. (2012). A cultural sociology of religion: New directions. Annual Review of Sociology, 38, 247–265.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1986). The origins and diversity of axial age civilizations. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (Ed.). (2002). Multiple modernities. Piscataway: Transaction Publishers.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (2003). Comparative civilizations and multiple modernities. Leiden: Brill.
Esposito, J. L., Fasching, D. J., & Lewis, T. (2008). Religion and globalization: World religions in historical perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Gorski, P. S. (2000). The mosaic moment: An early modernist critique of modernist theories of nationalism. American Journal of Sociology, 105(5), 1428–1468.
Gorski, P. S. (2003). The disciplinary revolution: Calivinism and the rise of the state in early modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gorski, P. S. (2005). The return of the repressed: Religion and the political unconscious of historical sociology. In J. Adams, E. S. Clemens, & A. S. Orloff (Eds.), Remaking modernity: Politics, history and sociology (pp. 161–189). Durham: Duke University Press.
Gorski, P. S., & Altinordu, A. (2008). After secularization? Annual Review of Sociology, 34, 55–85.
Gorski, P. S., Kim, D. K., Torpey, J., & Van Antwerpen, J. (Eds.). (2012). The post-secular in question: Religion in contemporary society. New York: New York University Press.
Grew, R. (2008). Finding frontiers in historical research on globalization. In I. Rossi (Ed.), Frontiers of globalization research: Theoretical and methodological approaches (pp. 271–286). New York: Springer.
Guillen, M. F. (2001). Is globalization civilizing, destructive or feeble? A critique of five key debates in the social science literature. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 235–260.
Habermas, J. (2008). Secularism’s crisis of faith: Notes on post-secular society. New Perspectives Quarterly, 25, 17–29.
Habermas, J., & Ratzinger, J. (2006). The dialectics of secularization: On reason and religion. San Francisco: Ignatius.
Hagan, J., & Ebaugh, H. R. (2003). Calling upon the sacred: Migrants’ use of religion in the migration process. International Migration Review, 37(4), 1145–1163.
Hann, C. (2011). Eastern Christianity and Western social theory ((Erfurter Vorträge zur Kulturgeschichte des Orthodoxen Christentums No 10)). Erfurt: University of Erfurt.
Hastings, A. (1997). The construction of nationhood: Ethnicity, religion and nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hayden, R. M., & Walker, T. D. (2013). Intersecting religioscapes: A comparative to trajectories of change, scale, and competitive sharing of religious spaces. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 81(2), 399–426.
Haynes, J. (1998). Religion in global politics. London: Longman.
Hedges, P. (2012). The old and new comparative theologies: Discourses on religion, the theology of religions, orientalism and the boundaries of traditions. Religions, 3, 1120–1137.
Heelas, P., & Woodhead, L. (assisted by Seel, B., Szerszynski, B., and Tusting, K.). (2005). The spiritual revolution: Why religion is giving way to spirituality. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, P. (1999). Global transformations: Politics, economics, and culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Hinnells, J. R. (2010a). Why study religions? In J. R. Hinnells (Ed.), The Routledge companion to the study of religion (pp. 5–20). London: Routledge.
Hinnells, J. R. (Ed.). (2010b). The Routledge companion to the study of religion. London: Routledge.
Hobson, J. M. (2004). The Eastern origins of Western civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hopkins, D. N., Lorentzen, L. A., Mendieta, E., & Batstone, D. (Eds.). (2001). Religions/globalizations: Theories and cases. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jenkins, P. (2007). The next Christendom: The coming of global Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press.
Johnson, T. M., & Grim, B. J. (Eds.), (2014). Religious traditions. In World religion database: International religious demographic statistics and sources. Leiden: Brill. http://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/wrd_default.asp. Accessed 9 Oct 2014.
Juergensmeyer, M. (1994). The new cold war? Religious nationalism confronts the secular state. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Juergensmeyer, M. (2001). Terror in the mind of God: The global rise of religious violence. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Juergensmeyer, M. (Ed.). (2003). Global religions: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Karpov, V., Lisovskaya, E., & Barry, D. (2012). Ethnodoxy: How popular ideologies fuse religious and ethnic identities. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 51(4), 638–655.
Kennedy, P., & Roudometof, V. (2002). Introduction: Transnationalism in a global age. In P. Kennedy & V. Roudometof (Eds.), Communities across borders: New immigrants and transnational cultures (pp. 1–26). London: Routledge.
Krindatch, A. D. (2004). Patterns of religious change in post-Soviet Russia: Major trends from 1998 to 2003. Religion, State and Society, 32(2), 115–136.
Krindatch, A. D. (2010). Orthodox reality in America. PowerPoint presentation. http://www.orthodoxreality.org/. Retrieved August 31, 2011.
Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kurzman, C. (2002). Bin Laden and other thoroughly modern Muslims. Contexts, 1(4), 13–20.
Lechner, F. (2003). Defining religion: A pluralistic approach for the global age. In A. Greil & D. G. Bromley (Eds.), Defining religion: Investigating the boundaries between the sacred and the secular (pp. 67–83). Boston: JAI/Elsevier.
Levitt, P. (2001). The transnational villagers. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Levitt, P. (2003). You know, Abraham really was the first immigrant: Religion and transnational migration. International Migration Review, 37(3), 847–873.
Levitt, P. (2004). Redefining the boundaries of belonging: The institutional character of transnational religious life. Sociology of Religion, 65(1), 1–18.
Levitt, P. (2007). God needs no passport: How immigrants are changing the American religious landscape. New York: Free Press.
Levitt, P., & Khagram, S. (Eds.). (2007). The transnational studies reader: Intersections and innovations. London: Routledge.
Logan, F. D. (2002). A history of the church in the middle ages. London: Routledge.
Lyon, D. (2008). Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in postmodern times. London: Polity.
MacCulloch, D. (2009). A history of Christianity: The first three thousand years. London: Penguin.
Madeley, J. T. S., & Enyedi, Z. (Eds.). (2003). Church and state in contemporary Europe: The chimera of neutrality. London: Frank Cass.
Marret, J. L. (2008). Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb: A ‘glocal’ organization. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 31(6), 541–552.
Martin, D. (2001). Pentecostalism: The world their parish. Maiden: Basil Blackwell.
Martin, D. (2005). On secularization: Towards a revised general theory. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Masuzawa, T. (2005). The invention of world religions. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Matsuzato, K. (2009). Inter-orthodox relations and transborder nationalities in and around unrecognized Abkhazia and Transnistria. Religion, State and Society, 37(3), 239–262.
McAlister, E. (2005). Globalization and the religious production of space. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 44(3), 249–255.
McLoughlin, S. (2010). Migration, diaspora and transnationalism: Transformations of religion and culture in a globalizing age. In J. R. Hinnells (Ed.), The Routledge companion to the study of religion (pp. 526–549). London: Routledge.
McMullen, M. (2000). The Baha’i: The religious construction of a global identity. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Naletova, I. (2013). European secularity and religious modernity in Russia and Eastern Europe: Focus on orthodox Christianity. In R. W. Hefner, J. Hutchinson, S. Mels, & C. Timmerman (Eds.), Religions in movement: The local and the global contemporary faith traditions (pp. 57–78). London: Routledge.
Nelson, S., & Gorski, P. S. (2014). Conditions of religious belonging: Confessionalization, de-parochialization, and the Euro-American divergence. International Sociology, 29(1), 3–21.
Ng, P. T. M. (2007). ‘Glocalization’ as a key to the interplay between Christianity and Asian cultures: The vision of Francis Wei in early twentieth century China. International Journal of Public Theology, 1, 101–111.
Obadia, L. (2010). Globalization and the sociology of religion. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to the sociology of religion (pp. 477–497). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Parsons, T. (1977). The evolution of societies. New York: Prentice Hall.
Payne, D. P. (2007). Nationalism and the local church: The source of ecclesiastical conflict in the orthodox commonwealth. Nationalities Papers, 35(5), 831–852.
Pearson, C. (2007). The quest for a glocal public theology. International Journal of Public Theology, 1, 151–172.
Pieterse, J. N. (2003). Globalization and culture: Global Mélange. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Raudvere, C., Stala, K., & Willert, T. S. (Eds.). (2012). Rethinking the space for religion: New actors in Central and Southeast Europe on religion, authenticity and belonging. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.
Riesebrodt, M. (2012). The promise of salvation: A theory of religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Riesebrodt, M., & Konieczny, M. E. (2010). Sociology of religion. In J. R. Hinnells (Ed.), The Routledge companion to the study of religion (pp. 145–164). London: Routledge.
Ritzer, G. (Ed.). (2007). The Blackwell companion to globalization. Oxford: Wiley/Basil Blackwell.
Robertson, R. (1991). Globalization, modernization, and postmodernization: The ambiguous position of religion. In R. Robertson & W. Garrett (Eds.), Religion and global order (pp. 281–291). New York: Paragon House.
Robertson, R. (1992). Globalization: Social theory and global culture. London: Sage.
Robertson, R. (2007). Global millennialism: A postmortem on secularization. In P. Beyer & L. Beaman (Eds.), Religion, globalization and culture (pp. 9–34). Leiden: Brill.
Robertson, R., & Garrett, W. (1991). Religion and globalization. An introduction. In R. Robertson & W. Garrett (Eds.), Religion and global order (pp. ix–xxiii). New York: Paragon House.
Rossi, I. (Ed.). (2008). Frontiers of globalization research: Theoretical and methodological approaches. New York: Springer.
Roudometof, V. (2000). Transnationalism and globalization: The Greek-Orthodox Diaspora between Orthodox universalism and transnational nationalism. Diaspora, 9(3), 361–397.
Roudometof, V. (2001). Nationalism, globalization and orthodoxy: The social origins of ethnic conflict in the Balkans. Westport: Greenwood.
Roudometof, V. (2008). Greek-orthodoxy, territoriality and globality: Religious responses and institutional disputes. Sociology of Religion, 68(1), 67–91.
Roudometof, V. (2013). The glocalisations of Eastern orthodox Christianity. European Journal of Social Theory, 16(2), 226–245.
Roudometof, V. (2014). Globalization and orthodox Christianity: The transformations of a religious tradition. London/New York: Routledge.
Roudometof, V. (2015). Orthodox Christianity as transnational religion: Theoretical, comparative and historical considerations. Religion, State and Society, 43(3), 211–227.
Roudometof, V. (Guest editor). (2016). Glocal religions, Special issue of the e-journal Religions.
Roy, O. (2004). Globalized Islam: The search for a new Ummah. New York: Columbia University Press.
Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. London: Penguin.
Schlesinger, P., & Foret, F. (2006). Political roof and sacred canopy? Religion and the EU Constitution. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(1), 59–81.
Scholte, J. A. (2000). Globalization: A critical introduction. London: Palgrave.
Sociology of Religion. (1999). Special issue on secularization theory, 60(3).
Spickard, J. V. (2004). Globalization and religious organizations: Rethinking the relationship between church, culture, and market. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 18(1), 47–63.
Spohn, W. (2003). Multiple modernity, nationalism and religion: A global perspective. Current Sociology, 51(3/4), 265–286.
Stackhouse, M. L., & Paris, P. J. (Eds.). (2000). God and globalization: Religion and the powers of the common life. Harrisburg: Trinity International.
Stark, R., & Finke, R. (2000). Acts of faith: Explaining the human side of religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Stearns, P. N. (2010). Globalization in world history. London: Routledge.
Steger, M. B., Battersby, P., & Siracusa, J. (Eds.). (2014). The Sage handbook of globalization. London: Sage.
Storrar, W. F. (2004). Where the local and the global meet: Duncan Forrester’s glocal public theology and Scottish political context. In W. F. Storrar & A. R. Morton (Eds.), Public theology for the 21st century (pp. 405–430). London/New York: T&T Clark.
Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Harvard: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Tehranian, M. (2007). Globalization and religious resurgence: A historical perspective. The Muslim World, 97(3), 385–394.
The Hedgehog Review. (2002, Summer). Special issue: Religion and globalization.
Therborn, G. (2000). Globalizations: Dimensions, historical waves, regional effects, normative governance. International Sociology, 15(2), 151–179.
Thompson, K. (2011). Globalization and religion. In J. Alexander, R. Jacobs, & P. Smith (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of cultural sociology (pp. 471–483). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tomka, M. (2006). Is conventional sociology of religion able to deal with differences between Eastern and Western European developments? Social Compass, 53(2), 251–265.
Torpey, J. (2010). A (post-) secular age? Religion and the two exceptionalisms. Social Research, 77(1), 269–296.
Triandafyllidou, A. (Ed.). (2010). Muslims in 21st century Europe: Structural and cultural perspectives. London: Routledge.
Turner, B. S. (1994). Orientalism, postomodernism and globalism. London: Routledge.
Turner, B. S. (2009). Reshaping the sociology of religion: Globalisation, spirituality and the erosion of the social. Sociological Review, 57(1), 186–200.
Turner, B. S. (2010a). Mapping the sociology of religion. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to the sociology of religion (pp. 1–29). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Turner, B. S. (Ed.). (2010b). The new Blackwell companion to the sociology of religion. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Turner, B. S. (2010c). Religion in a post-secular society. In B. S. Turner (Ed.), The new Blackwell companion to the sociology of religion (pp. 649–667). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Turner, B. S. (2013). The religious and the political: A comparative sociology of religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Turner, B. S., & Khonder, H. H. (2010). Globalization East and West. London: Sage.
Van Der Veer, P. (2002). Transnational religion: Hindu and Muslim movements. Global Networks, 2(2), 95–109.
Vasquez, M. A. (2008). Studying religion in motion: A networks approach. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 20, 151–184.
Warburg, M. (2006). Citizens of the world: A history and sociology of the Baha’i from a globalization perspective. Leiden: Brill.
Waters, M. (1995). Globalization. London: Routledge.
Zubrzycki, G. (2006). The crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and religion in Post-Communist Poland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank his assistant Eleonora Kyriakou for her editorial input, as well as the volume’s editor for his constructive advice in revising the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roudometof, V. (2016). Globalization. In: Yamane, D. (eds) Handbook of Religion and Society. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31395-5_25
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31395-5_25
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-61816-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-31395-5
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)