Engaging Religion in a Contested Age: Contestations, Postmodernity, and Social Change

2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-157
Author(s):  
Paula D Nesbitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Company Town ◽  
Case Examples ◽  
Civic Discourse ◽  
Plant Closure ◽  
Moral Basis

Abstract Both secular and religious contestations have threatened the character of contemporary civic discourse, signifying underlying issues needing to be addressed. Postmodern and globalization influences have contributed to their scope and intensity, adding underlying complexities to the presenting issues. Drawing upon case examples of a secular plant closure in a racially and ethnically diverse company town and strife threatening organizational viability in the cross-cultural Anglican Communion, I argue first that religion either directly influences or indirectly serves as a latent resource within secularized morality, and second that cross-cultural contestations involving religion typically contain underlying societal concerns; both need to be addressed in analyzing meaning and hope for change. Sociologists of religion have opportunity to explore how religion is deployed as a moral basis of contestation, and how it might interact with postcolonial and other cultural dynamics, with implications for solutions in building social cohesion across worldviews and cultures.

scholarly journals Performing for Peace and Social Change in Africa's Great Lakes Region

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-38
Author(s):  
MAËLINE LE LAY
Keyword(s):  
Conflict Resolution ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Political Awareness ◽  
Mass Violence

International aid has influenced and, in part, shaped the artistic sector in Africa's Great Lakes region (DRC, Rwanda, Burundi) since the 1990s, a period marked by numerous conflicts and mass violence. Due to NGOs’ programmatic foci, artists performing for social change are increasingly compelled to focus on reconciliation and conflict resolution, generating political awareness and bringing about social change, healing and peacemaking. Through a comparative analysis of European and local productions on the genocide this article asks, how and why does an ‘NGO-style theatre’ develop a specific audience in the region? How have themes such as mass violence, inter-ethnic conflict and social cohesion become the main concerns of the territory's theatre? How do performances made and/or sponsored by NGOs challenge not only theatre's form, its social stakes and functions, but also the conception of its audience and the relationships between actors and spectators?

scholarly journals James S. Pacy

2008 ◽  
Vol 41 (04) ◽  
pp. 890-891
Author(s):  
John P. Burke ◽  
Garrison Nelson ◽  
Alan Wertheimer
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Political Science ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Professor Emeritus ◽  
Company Town ◽  
Diverse Community

It is with great sadness that we report the death of James S. Pacy, professor emeritus of political science. Jim died at his home in Burlington, Vermont, on April 21, 2008, of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the age of 77. Jim, of proud Hungarian descent, was born in Caledonia, Ontario, on August 17, 1930. His family emigrated to Manville, New Jersey, when he was two years old. Manville, at the time the company town of asbestos manufacturer Johns-Manville, was an ethnically diverse community just a short drive up from Princeton but in an entirely different world. His hometown was the topic of many a reminiscence and story told by Jim over the years. Manville, for Jim, was always a reminder of the importance of home, ethnic ties, and community. For him, that humble background would lead to greater things.

Introduction: social cohesion and social change in Europe

2013 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerard Boucher ◽  
Yunas Samad
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Cohesion

scholarly journals Cultural diversity in unequal societies sustained through cross-cultural competence and identity valuation

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Bunce
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Competence ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
Field Methods ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Majority Culture ◽  
Common Strategy

AbstractIn much contemporary political discourse, valued cultural characteristics are threatened by interaction with culturally distinct others, such as immigrants or a hegemonic majority. Such interaction often fosters cross-cultural competence (CCC), the ability to interact successfully across cultural boundaries. However, most theories of cultural dynamics ignore CCC, making cultural diversity incompatible with mutually beneficial inter-group interaction, and contributing to fears of cultural loss. Here, interview-based field methods at an Amazonian ethnic boundary demonstrate the prevalence of CCC. These data motivate a new theoretical mathematical model, incorporating competing developmental paths to CCC and group identity valuation, that illuminates how a common strategy of disempowered minorities can counter-intuitively sustain cultural diversity within a single generation: Given strong group identity, minorities in a structurally unequal, integrative society can maintain their distinctive cultural norms by learning those of the majority. Furthermore, rather than a rejection of, or threat to, majority culture, the valuation of a distinctive minority identity can characterize CCC individuals committed to extensive, mutually beneficial engagement with the majority as members of an integrative, multi-cultural society.

The Potential of Gamification for Humanitarian Organizations to Support Integration in Migration Contexts

2022 ◽  
pp. 381-397
Author(s):  
Marvin Jammermann ◽  
Beybin Elvin Tunc
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Interaction ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
Democratic Spaces

The aim of this chapter is to explore the connections between the inherent characteristics of gamification and the current need for sustainable integration activities that are based on meaningful social interactions. By highlighting the potential of gamification for creating democratic spaces of social interaction and engaging diverse actors in joyful encounters, it is possible to underline the notion of social change that gamification can induce. In the area of integration, humanitarian organizations can harness the potential of gamification in their integration activities in order to ensure increased social cohesion. Through a critical analysis of existing gamification and integration approaches, the chapter provides arguments for why gamification is perfectly suited to improve integration processes by highlighting the manifold applications of gamification experience in the humanitarian field.

Buddhist Nationalism and Burmese Christianity

2016 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-167
Author(s):  
Pum Za Mang
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
The West ◽  
Western Religion ◽  
The Cross ◽  
World Christianity ◽  
Political Milieu

Buddhist nationalists in Burma have characterised Christianity as a Western religion and accused Christians in the country of being more loyal to the West than to the motherland. This essay, however, argues that Christianity is not Western, but global, and that Christians in Burma are not followers of the West, but Burmese who remain as loyal to their homeland as do their fellow Burmese. It is stressed in this article that the indigenous form of Christianity after the exodus of the missionaries from Burma in 1966 has proved that Burmese Christianity should be seen not as a Western religion, but as a part of world Christianity. This article also contends that a combination of social change, political milieu, tribal religion and the cross-cultural appropriation of the gospel has contributed to religious conversion among the ethnic Chin, Kachin and Karen from tribal religion to Christianity.

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