Decolonizing religion and peacebuilding / Atalia Omer.

Author/creator Omer, Atalia
Other author Oxford University Press.
Format Electronic
Publication InfoNew York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2023]
Descriptionx, 291 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Supplemental ContentFull text available from Oxford Scholarship Online
Subjects

SeriesStudies in strategic peacebuilding
Contents Historical background and colonial afterlives -- "Sisyphean" governance -- Doing religion -- Survival piety : a preferential option for the poor? -- Religion and "soft" security : countermessaging and surveillance -- "Religious" resiliency and "soft" security -- Un-revolutionary decolonial love: the spirituality of just "getting alone" -- Conclusion or does justice have anything to do with religion and the practice of peace.
Abstract "The conversations among scholars intersecting with policy circles and networks around the topic of the global engagement with religion celebrate the plurality of religious and cultural traditions to the extent that they prove useful for the promotion of peace and development. But, if this is all that scholarship on religion and peace can do, there is a problem. When scholarship only responds to the question "What works?," it simply surrenders itself to the present. Delimiting the scholarly horizons to the demands and constraints of the present prevents a criticality without which new horizons cannot be imagined. Religion's occasional usefulness in peacebuilding does not necessarily mean justice-oriented outcomes. The praxis of religion and peace does not entail decolonial justice. It certainly does not disrupt global hegemonic constellations. On the contrary, a thin discourse concerning pluralism, or what I call the "harmony business," has been integral to western colonial discourse since the late nineteenth century. Rather than a prophetic irruption, religion and the practice of peace constitute a bureaucratic tool. Thus, a decolonial critique is a necessary step in dispelling the scaffolding of the harmony business that posits interreligious understanding as an instrument of peace and security and exposing it as the latest iteration of religion's long colonial history. An intersectionality that challenges the extraction of religion from the histories of racialization and its construction as a bounded and distinct sector is what I bring to the analysis of religion and the practices of peace"-- Provided by publisher.
General noteIncludes index.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2023004739
ISBN9780197683026 (paperback)
ISBN9780197683019 (hardback)
ISBN(epub)

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