Discussion: The Politics of Civilizational Talk

Abstract

What are the political stakes of “civilization talk”? That is the central question at the heart of the four chapters in this section. Whether the term is invoked in the “East” or the “West,” in religious or secular contexts, in debates about economic globalization or conversations about women’s role, these chapters suggest that invoking the language of civilization always has political implications. Each of these chapters explores these political dynamics from two perspectives: by examining the exclusionary politics of dominant civilizational discourses and by pointing toward the political possibilities of a more critical, pluralist kind of civilization talk. The ontological distinction that the introduction makes, between substantialist and processual or relational approaches to the study of civilization, thus also has potential political—and normative—implications.¹