Religious Diversity, Plurality and Pluralism: Towards an Analytical Grid
Religious Super-diversity and Peacebuilding across Asia and its Diasporas - Alessandro Saggioro
Dionigi Albera [+]
Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative, Aix-en-Provence
Dionigi Albera (Ph. D. Anthropology, University Aix-Marseille, 1995) is Research Director at the CNRS (Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative, Aix-en-Provence). His main topics of research are pilgrimage, ritual, interfaith practices, kinship, domestic organization, migration, museography, Alps, Mediterranean. His recent publications on religion include Sharing sacred spaces in the Mediterranean. Christians, Muslims and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, edited with Maria Couroucli, Indiana University Press, 2012; Dieu, une enquête. Judaïsme, christianisme, islam: ce qui les distingue, ce qui les rapproche, edited with Katell Berthelot, Paris, Flammarion, 2013; International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies: Itineraries, Gaps and Obstacles, edited with John Eade, London/New York, Routledge, 2015; New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies, edited with John Eade, London/New York, Routledge, 2017.
Mariachiara Giorda [+]
University of Roma Tre
Maria Chiara Giorda (Ph.D. Paris, EPHE 2007) is Associate Professor of History of Religions at the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Roma Tre. She is coordinator of the international SHARP Lab Project: her research activity focuses on the following topics: history of religions, geography of religions, religion and urban spaces, history of monasticism. Her most recent publications include the co-curatorship of the volume Geography of Encounters: The Making and Unmaking Spaces (Palgrave 2021) with Marian Burchardt and Luoghi di culto della Chiesa ortodossa romena in Italia: dinamiche di insediamento, Religioni e Società (2022) with Ioan Cozma.
Description
This chapter proposes an analytical grid of the concept of “diversity” in religious dynamics. After exploring the use of the concept of “super-diversity” in religious field, we discuss the term “new religious pluralism” and we propose a new typology based on three key words: diversity, plurality, and pluralism. To capture the dynamics employed in the contemporary religious field, we mobilize the prefix “hyper” to stress the complex and multi-layered religious diversity. From a historical, anthropological, and sociological perspective, this tripartite typology sheds light on the different levels and scales of diversity, focusing on individual and collective, inter- and intra-religious relationships.