Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
ANNUAL
REVIEWS Further The Anthropology
Click here for quick links to
Annual Reviews content online,
including:
of Secularism
Other articles in this volume
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Our comprehensive search Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science,
London WC2A 2AE, United Kingdom; email: f.cannell@lse.ac.uk
85
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
86 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
rationalization might occur within different secularization at the global level than does his
regional or religious traditions. Weber also earlier writing, but he continues to argue that
clearly distinguished between the analysis of Britain and indeed the United States conrm
the origin of an idea or institution (e.g., his views. In the U.S. case, he asserts that the
Christianity) and the analysis of its histori- persistently high levels of church afliation and
cal spread or transposition (e.g., in colonial faith in God in America compared with levels in
conversion). Commentators such as Parsons Europe are a transitional phenomenon linked
recognized these features of Webers thought to the history of U.S. immigration and the
(Parsons 1963) and drew attention to his famous role of religion as a marker of ethnic identity.
essay on the Protestant Ethic (Weber 1976) as a Rejecting the criticism that his views are teleo-
specic case study of historical Europe, not as logical, Bruce nevertheless predicts that trends
a template for the universal study of moderni- in American Protestantism indicate a repetition
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
ties. Both Luhmann and Berger also focused of the European experience: Privatization, in-
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
on Western modernity, arguing that religious dividualism and relativism are now affecting the
modalities transformed in complex ways, rather US churches in the way they did the British
than simply being discarded. Nevertheless, in- churches in the middle of the twentieth cen-
terpretations of this work often drifted toward a tury (Bruce 2002, p. 227).
convergence theory view that Western moder- This kind of argument was criticized by an
nity would provide a template for modern- early and continuing dissenter on secularization
ization processes elsewhere; secularization was among sociologists: Martin (2005). Martins
understood as both sign and consequence of an work has stressed that secularization can take
inevitable modernity. The denition of secu- quite different routes within different global
larity often remained implicit. contexts, has argued for the value of seeing
Although the debate has now moved on con- modernity as capable of taking religious forms
siderably, some inuential scholars still defend (for instance, in Latin America), and has been
classic secularization positions. For instance, alert to continued Christian valences in appar-
Bruce proposes that the key issue to be ad- ently secular Western Europe. However, such
dressed is still what he suggests is the convinc- views were shared by few other sociologists
ing empirical evidence of decreasing religious before the late 1980s.
participation and increasing religious indiffer- Since the resurgence of so-called political
ence in the Western world. The pluralism of religion in the 1980s, academic positions have
modern society compared with a more socially changed considerably. Thus Casanova, writing
homogeneous past is crucial; it is the perception in 1994, described a volte-face in sociological
of the possibility of choice that propels the split- opinion and asked, Who still believes in the
ting and decline of religion [f]rom [c]athedrals myth of secularization? (Casanova 1994, p. 11).
to [c]ults (Bruce 1996). Bruce believes that in- I propose that somewhat uncritical oppositions
stitutional ssure (rather than modern science between religion and secularism and between
per se) is causally linked to the rise of religious the past and modernity, in fact, continue to be
indifference. Religion can no longer be taken constitutive of many public areas of debate and
so seriously, and (redeploying Nietzsches fa- some important academic arenas.
mous phrase), for Bruce, God is dead (2002) Secularization arguments appear to be a de-
in modern Britain. fault position at the borders of the academic,
Whereas changes in institutional forms and the journalistic, and the political (compare
congregational attendance in Britain are well Benthall 2009). Convergence theory inter-
documented, their connection to religious in- pretations have often been combined with
difference in Britain or elsewhere is contested subtraction theory interpretations of moder-
(e.g., Davie 1994). Bruces later work makes nity in which, as Milbank (1990) has argued,
less-clear-cut claims about the uniformity of some scholars claimed or assumed that the
contemporary world has acquired a privileged in original). Nevetheless, the popular appeal of
grasp of reality compared to the past, by the idea that the relative truth claims of religion
discarding religious illusion. Modern science and science can be somehow settled in straight
is cast as offering access to material reality, contest is clearly strong, and this mindset ac-
whereas religion is cast as an expression of counts for the unusual mainstream success of
(personal) childishness or (collective) immatu- books such as cognitive anthropologist Boyers
rity. As Taylor (2007, p. 636) has noted, some Religion Explained, which seeks to show that re-
individuals are drawn to the idea (based on ligion is simply an unwanted side effect of di-
a misinterpretation of Nietzsche) that facing verse human mental processes, which evolved
mans aloneness in the universe is the most cru- for other reasons (Boyer 2001, p. 330; for an
cial guarantee of toughness of character and of important critique, see Bloch 2008).
mind. Thus we can understand the glee with Certain ideas about secularization, there-
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
which some commentators greeted the Ameri- fore, have entered popular culture and have
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
can Religious Identication Survey (ARIS) of themselves become a form of ethnographic da-
2001 (http://www.americanreligionsurvey- tum. Insofar as many people believe seculariza-
aris.org) and its follow-ups to 2009, which ap- tion to be inevitable in modernity, it may even
pear to show statistically that the number of become in some places a partly self-fullling
Americans who believe in God, although still prophecy (Cannell 2006). In other cases, it is
overwhelming, is gradually decreasing; refuta- clear that people are rejecting the term religion
tions from the opposite camp were equally vo- itself, while attempting (sometimes in contra-
cal. The trends recorded by ARIS are clearly dictory ways) to create forms of practice that
important, although the survey actually mea- many anthropologists would still classify as re-
sures a rise in the numbers of Americans who ligion (e.g., Luhrmann 1989, Pike 2001). An
answer that they are of no religion, which unusual degree of overlap exists between terms
leaves open the question of what this statement social science uses in the analysis of contem-
means emically. But where liberal political po- porary forms of religious and secular experi-
sitions are often aligned with secular outlooks ence and the terms that informants may use in
and conservative positions with religious out- daily life. Anthropologists are potentially well
looks (compare Harding 1987, 1994, 2001), as placed to record this ethnographically and so
in the United States, both sides have a high stake perhaps exit from some of the circular aspects
in interpretation. of general-order analysis.
A perception that the link between moder- If for some secularization theorists the
nity and secularization is somehow obvious has institutional changes in mainstream Western
also played into the enormous interest in the religion are causally linked to the rise of
debates over the new atheists (Beattie 2007). religious indifference, other trends of thinking,
Dawkins (2006) argues at length both that re- drawing on Luckmann (1970) and ultimately on
ligion is responsible for most of the atrocities Durkheim (1971 [1915]), have stressed instead
in world history and that religion is a form the transmutation of collective religion into a
of fallacious explanation of the origins of the modern, nontheistic religion of the individual.
world, now superceded by scientic accounts Perhaps the best-known current proponent
such as neo-Darwinism. His critics have opined of this view is Heelas (1996), who revisits this
that Dawkins does not understand theology line of analysis via a distinctive emphasis on
well; as Terry Eagleton puts it, Christianity the importance of 1960s counter-culture; for
was never meant to be an explanation of any- Heelas, this is a key period in which people
thing in the rst place. It is rather like saying began to abandon the mainstream churches
that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget primarily because they disliked churches
about Chekhov (Eagleton 2009, p. 7, emphasis claims to authority, and people redirected their
88 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
energies toward multifarious individual quests, this history of transmission is one of Asads
often preferring to dene these as spiritual but central concerns, whereas much of the recent
not religious. Heelas has worked with Wood- work by anthropologists of India understands
head (Heelas et al. 2004) to analyze the decline secularism as an aspect of state ideology, colo-
in U.K. Christian congregations from this nial or local.
perspective (but compare Smith 2008 who sum- Casanovas central book, Public Religions
marizes the case against). Heelass most recent in the Modern World, offered a considerable
book presents a signicant revision to his earlier advance on most previous sociological writers
views; in replacing his earlier uses of the terms except Martin, precisely because Casanova is
self-spiritualities and New Age with the phrase interested in historical variation. Casanova
spiritualities of life (Heelas 2008, p. 26), he suggests that secularization theory has con-
seeks to correct any implication that new re- fused three premises that should, in fact, be
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
ligious formations are trivial and to illuminate kept separate: (a) the historical process of
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
90 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
while disdaining, tacitly prohibiting, or stunt- contrast between religious and secular, like that
ing others. The central sections of Formations between disenchantment and enchantment (but
of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity at- see Lambek 2005), is a false binary produced
tempt to show this line of thinking in relation posthoc by the ideological lens through which
to concepts of subjectivity, agency, and rights. the Western present views the past and else-
Asad pays particular attention to claims that where as premodern.
democractic politics alleviates human suffering. As in his earlier work on religion, Asads
On one hand, he argues that suffering has not interest in Foucault is evidenced by his par-
been reduced, but merely deected onto alter- ticular attention to the constraining and pro-
nate (often non-Western) targets and managed ductive powers of practice as well as of ideol-
through a different aesthetic. On the other, he ogy; he writes, we should look to what makes
draws our attention toward ways in which sec- certain practices conceptually possible, desired,
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
ular logics refuse to permit certain kinds of mandatoryincluding the everyday practices
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
passionate agency, which involve attributing by which the subjects experience is disciplined
meaning to pain (the key example here is re- (Asad 2003, p. 36). His own books, of course,
ligious asceticism, but he also discusses child- are not rst-hand ethnographies of such prac-
birth), but instead outlaw these as irrational and tices, but two of his former students have each
therefore unjustied. responded to the call for such ethnography
Asad thus rephrases the dilemma often dis- with widely admired results. Both anthropol-
cussed as the clash between universal rights and ogists study the Islamic pietist movement in
minority rights by asking under which condi- Egypt. Mahmoods densely considered book
tions some people come to be considered as (2005) and her key articles (2001a,b) conduct an
minorities at all. Liberal secularisms claims to ethnographic examination of the womens piety
tolerance, he argues, will always reach a limit movement in Cairo against the grain (as she tells
when the fundamental premises of its world- us) of Mahmoods own secular progressivist
view are challenged; at this point, minorities and feminist assumptions about what female
are prevented from speaking about alternate re- agency should be (Mahmood 2005, p. xi). The
alities, either by persuasion or by force. mosque movement Mahmood studies strikingly
Yet although he often seems to sympathize includes precisely the constituency of women
with the practitioners of counter-hegemonic middle class and increasingly educated, often
ways of life in the modern world, those whose professionalwho might be expected to adopt
passionate and embodied experiences work secular values (2005, p. 66). The movement
against the grain of liberal rationalism, Asad is also innovative in allowing women to teach
has also argued for the preservation in political women on Islamic matters. While always al-
life of a reconstructed secularism (Asad 2001, lowing for the macropolitical context in which
p. 147; compare Bangstad 2009, p. 192), and he many Egyptians are critical of the post-Sadat
distances himself from the views of theologians secular government, and especially of its West-
and others for whom religion is a greater real- ern leanings, Mahmood nds narrowly political
ity than secularism is. He dislikes, for instance, explanations inadequate; the aim of this move-
any arguments that suggest there may be an un- ment is to become more pious. Although the
derlying and transformed religious component dominance of secular logic makes it inevitable
to apparently secular ideas including national- that alternative self-fashionings must engage
ism because, as he says, I am arguing that the state politics if they are to succeed, these ethical
secular should not be thought of as the space practices of self-fashioning are not reducible to
in which real human life gradually emancipates their political means (2005, p. 194). These aims
itself from the controlling power of religion are pursued through a program of prayer that
and thus achieves the latters relocation (Asad begins with the deliberate awakening of con-
2003, p. 191). Rather, he maintains that the science and the rousing of the will, but whose
success can be gauged by the degree to which French Muslims. Bowens rst study brings to
prayer becomes an embodied desire and need life the point made by many commentators:
in itself. Understanding such practices, Mah- that there is wide variation between secularisms
mood argues, facilitates a critique of many of even within Europe. French laicite is grounded
the binaries through which the anthropology of not only in the French Revolutions production
religion may often be expressed, including the of a particular idea of citizenship, but also in
opposition between ritual and sponteneity and the extended efforts by the state to disentangle
that between autonomous agency and subor- itself from reliance on French Catholic insti-
dination. Hirschkinds absorbing study (2006) tutions, particularly in the eld of education.
similarly explores embodied disciplines within In France, Bowen tells us, citizenship and the
current Islam but focuses on the (male) use of dignity of the individual are guaranteed by a
cassette sermons and the distinctive practices of certain compulsory Republican homogeneity
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
These authors have sought to counter ing all domains of public employment such as
stereotypical views of Islamic pietism in the hospitals and schools. By contrast, variation of
public debate on Islam and secular politics opinion on matters that may implicitly chal-
(Hirschkind & Mahmood 2002, and see in- lenge Republican assumptions must be reserved
terventions by each author at http://www. to the private sphere. These are not merely the-
theimmanentframe.org). Their theoretical oretical issues; Bowen tells us that abstract and
approaches do have limitations as well as gains, elite discourse is woven into media and popular
however. Mahmood attends to the comparative debate in France to an unusual extent, dening
implications of the Egyptian case with respect the ways in which (for instance) documentary
to the construction of womens agency and portrayals of French Muslims are produced and
identity politics (2005, chapter 5 and epilogue) consumed. The French affaire du voile and the
but sometimes claims that a cross-cultural com- law that banned the wearing of religious signs
parative approach to prayer and religious self- in French schools may have conspicuously
construction would inevitably mislead (2001b, avoided the issues of the economic and social
p. 844). Despite his invocation of Mauss, Asads disadvantage of Frances immigrant workforce,
own Foucauldian antiessentialism tends to pro- the legacy of colonialism, etc., but it did so
duce a resistance to the search for similarities through a deeply felt French horror of public
and a preference for the highlighting of irre- displays of religious afliation. Bowen argues
ducible differences across contexts. Connect- that (as well as transgressing French feminism)
edly, his focus on the contrast between the dis- headscarves were experienced by non-Muslim
continuities of Christianity as an object and French people as a deliberate communication of
the potentialities of Islamic tradition some- difference and claim of (moral) superiority in a
times appears as an inconsistency in his work public context in which all should relate as equal
and even risks reproducing the dualistic con- citizens. It is for these historically constructed
trast between them, which he seeks to unravel yet viscerally felt reasons, he argues, that the
(compare Bangstad 2009, Caton 2006). French state nds it so difcult to accommo-
In another vein is Bowens recent research date the claim of large numbers of people in
on French Islam, published as a lucid account the Parisian suburbs and elsewhere to identify
of the development of the specic French themselves as both French citizens and visibly
state view of secularism, or laicite, and its observant Muslims. Yet the reasons for wearing
consequences for the crisis over veiling in the veil among French schoolgirls are complex,
public schools (2008) and an ethnography of highly various, and often less concerned with
understandings of being Muslim and of being communication to non-Muslim others than
French (2009) in the suburbs of Paris, the with the production of a certain kind of
location of the 2005 clashes between police and self-formation.
92 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
Among other contributions, Hefner & India itself. First, he quotes the argument of
Zamans (2006) Schooling Islam: The Culture many supporters of the Congress Party. All
and Politics of Modern Muslim Education offers Indians must be able to commit to a civic iden-
valuable comparisons from inside and outside tity not based on any religious precept so that
Europe, with a clear-sighted introduction by the nation is not threatened by perceived dif-
Hefner, and these issues are usefully related to ferences between Hindu and Muslim. Second,
the public sphere debates by Taylor and others there is the argument that Indian secularism
(Taylor et al. 2008). rests largely on Western models and is rooted
in British policies of religious neutrality. This
view, like the rst, tends to accompany a belief
INDIAN SECULARISM that state and religion must be separate if
Before the recent explosion of debates on Islam, freedom of religion and equal rights are to be
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
however, secularism was already being consid- protected. The third view differs: It argues that
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
ered comparatively in the context of Indian pol- ancient values of tolerance inherent in Hindu
itics. This literature is especially thought pro- culture are the best guarantee of religious free-
voking for anthropologists. Indian politicians doms because Hinduism acknowledges that
and intellectuals almost universally remarked aspects of the universal divinity are discernible
that secularism was an idea that devolved from in all forms of worship. In this denition,
European history and philosophy and was im- secularism comes to be dened as a form of
ported into India under British colonialism. Its pluralism with metaphysical foundations and
relevance to the Indian situation could there- not, in any sense, as the replacement of reli-
fore not be assumed. This indigenous debate gious values by irreligious ones. Smith himself
has shaped the academic literature on the sub- leans toward the view that the separation of
ject, giving it helpful analytic purchase. state and religion is a rmer defense against
We may consider the current literature potential interreligious violence. He points
to have started with Smiths (1963) India as to aspects of the Hindu formula that would
a Secular Nation, which took as its topic the not be acceptable to Muslims, Christians, and
observation made by the then-Indian Pres- others (perhaps even Buddhists). Smith tends
ident Dr. S. Radhakrishnan: It may appear to link Western secularism with democratic
somewhat strange that our government should modernity and progress.
be a secular one, while our culture is rooted His discussion was nevertheless prescient. It
in spiritual values (quoted in Smith 1963, was only after the eruption in 1992 of Hindu
p. 146). Smith explores a wide range of possible fundamentalist violence at the Ayodhya mosque
explanatory factors. Beginning with what he that writers turned again to the topic of Indian
takes to be the central feature of Western secularism. How had Hindu tolerance degener-
secularismthat is, the historical assertion by ated into the actions of the Rashtriya Swayam-
the state of its autonomy from the church and sevak Sangh (RSS) and other radical groups?
religionhe reviews the major Asian religions Madan (1997) argued that fundamentalist
to consider whether some would be more movements in religions including Hinduism
likely to provoke or tolerate parallel moves in and (earlier) Islam and Sikhism were a response
Asian states. Smith concludes that Hinduism, to the hidden intolerance of Western-style sec-
with no centralized clerical institutions likely ularist policies. Madan is among a number of
to compete with those of the state and with a scholars who argue that the European Enlight-
cyclical view of history that does not encourage enment was not simply a humane and liber-
religious intervention in political elds, was ating movement; it also contained oppressive
indeed an unlikely precursor for secularism. potentials, in particular, the tendency to por-
Smith reviews the three central explanations tray religious thinking as false with respect to
(and justications) offered for secularism in science and the accompanying stereotyping of
religious people as backward. Madan is some- Mahajan (2003) provides a lucid statement
what sceptical of romantic views of Hinduism of a Nehruvian position. He argues that the
as perfectly tolerant. Hinduism may extend tol- debate on Indian secularism has been falsely
erance to other faiths, but encounters with premised on a Western model of separation
Western objectications of religion can awaken between state and religion. Secularisms critics
its own defensive, nationalist, and territorial- (Madan 1987; Mitra 1991; Nandy 1985, 1992)
ist potentials. Western models of a state freed claim that politics without religion is without
from religion cannot, in Madans view, succeed moral basis; its advocates (e.g., Chatterji 1984,
in India. This ideal was a gift of Christianity, dSouza 1985, Kumar 1989, Singh & Chandra
specic to and only feasible within a particu- 1985) insist that such a separation is a condition
lar European, post-Protestant context (Madan of continued democracy and civil rights. Maha-
1997, p. 754). jan does not agree that the separation of the
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
The founder of Indian independence and state from religion can only occur in the West;
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Indian secularism, Mahatma Gandhi, was, of this mindset merely underwrites essentialized
course, a deeply religious Hindu who argued distinctions between East and West. Mahajan
that faith-based respect for all religions was argues that the state can guarantee civil freedom
the best foundation for tolerance and peace by affording equal protection to citizens of all
in India. Gandhi argued that the state should faiths and none. In Mahajans view, the West-
not support any religious organization and that ern attempt to make religion uncontentious
it should govern on areas of common citi- by making it private cannot work (in India or
zen interest, permitting the free expression of the West) because religions require public ex-
religious practices. His successor Jawarharlal pression. Such freedoms can be balanced only
Nehru amended this position according to his against the protection of other citizens case by
own agnostic and progressive views. Nehru ar- historical case (Mahajan 2003, p. 934).
gued that India could be ruled only by a govern- The range of this debate is considerable.
ment that afforded equal protection and respect Chatterjee (1993) tries to nd a middle ground
to those of all faiths and none and that the In- to resolve arguments for discarding and re-
dian Constitution should strive to afford equal taining the idea of Indian secularism. Among
protection to all its citizens. This objective, defenders of secularism, Corbridge & Harriss
however, has frequently been in tension with (2000) is an important critique; Beteille (1994)
Indias personal laws, dating back to adminstra- claims that Indian secularism has suffered from
tive arrangements resorted to in the British pe- the bad advocacy of academics.
riod. These allow for the application of different Indian secularism has also been impor-
systems of Hindu law (also applicable to Jains, tantly contextualized by recent works exam-
Sikhs, and Buddhists) and Muslim and Chris- ining Hindu nationalism and religious revival.
tian laws to issues such as marriage, divorce, Fuller (1983, 2003) offers a revealing account
caste, and other issues deemed religious. Deter- of the revival in status of the priests of the
mining and maintaining the boundary between Minakshi temple in Tamil Nadu, reversing
religious and civil jurisdictions continue to be an earlier sharp decline between independence
difcult, and the tension between Gandhian and the late 1970s. Fuller lucidly demonstrates
and Nehruvian visions of Indian secularism how misleading it would be to see the secu-
plays out in complex ways. Thus the Hindutva lar Indian state as simply antireligious. State
(Hinduness) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has clashes with the temple were driven by a com-
advocated the universal application of the civil bination of Congress Party commitment to the
code in questions of law and alimony, partly promotion of Harijan (untouchable) rights of
as an opportunistic strike against Muslims de- temple access and local Dravidian sentiment
fending sharia-based personal law in these against North Indian Brahmanism. Conversely,
contexts. the priests did not oppose state regulation of
94 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
the temple per se, but they did contest the In- parent paradox of aggressive nationalism pro-
dian governments representation of itself as moted by Buddhist monks must steer between
heir to the local Nyata royal dynasty. As it hap- unacceptable primordialism and unaccept-
pened, state modernization of priestly status able constructivism (Spencer 1995, p. 358).
via the demand for more formal education in
the Agamic ritual texts has opened a path for
priests self-assertion. The robust condence of A SECULAR AGE
the temple priests today is upheld by the recog- As Asad notes, debates on secularism were
nition that although the revival of temple en- dominated for many years by writers in po-
dowments by contemporary Indian politicians litical science and political philosophy (e.g.,
may sometimes be self-interested, it is necessi- Habermas 1992) whose interests had been in
tated by the atmosphere of heightened Hindu forms of justice, the denition and potentials
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
religious devotion among voters; there is thus of the public sphere, etc. These writers have
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
no sense of religion moving out of the pub- not been concerned primarily with a radical
lic sphere in this setting (compare Van der critique of the concept or origin of secularism
Veer 2001, Veer & Lehmann 1999). Chatterjee as such. Connolly (1999) and Taylor (2007)
(1993) suggested that the category of religion are clear exceptions, but Asad engages each of
became central to the imagination since colo- them on their divergences from his position
nialism of a distinctive Indian national culture rather than on their commonalities. Asad
by its elite, whereas Hansen (1999, p. 52) argues considers Taylor insufciently critical of
that early-twentieth-century nationalist claim- liberal democracies, especially their claims to
ing of religion as a transcendent moral space be direct-access societies. Asad also suggests
paved the way for its opportunistic annexation that, for Taylor, something like secularism is
by the BJP. Like Fuller, each scholar notes an likely to accompany modern democratic states
important impact of imported and indigenized all over the world and may guarantee pluralism
understandings of secularism on historical de- (Taylor 1999), which from Asads point of view
velopments, but they conclude that what hap- is a nave and potentially dangerous formula-
pened in India cannot be fully conceptualized tion (Asad 2006). An astute close reading of
in terms of the workings of Western states. these differences between Taylor and Asad is
We may recall here Dass comment that Asads given in a recent article by Bangstad (2009),
denitions sometimes suffer from a restricted although Bangstad perhaps oversimplies in
notion of context (Das 2006, p. 101). Asads claiming that Taylor views modern life as
close focus on the history of the secular in the benign (Taylor 2007, p. 675).
West, logical for his own project, means that Like Asad, Taylor sets out to deconstruct
he does not engage at length with polytheistic the notion of the secular. Unlike Asad, he does
(or nontheistic) formations of religion or with so with the premise that there may be some-
the unexpected forms of secularity, which might thing like a universal human search for reli-
emerge in such contexts. gious experience, often dened by Taylor as a
It continues to prove difcult to separate search for fullness of life. In this view, religious
the anthropological recognition of the asym- experience cannot be understood as an aspect
metrical history of colonialism from the as- of the transformations of (state) power and the
sumption that modernity has an asymmetrical forms of knowing these transformations permit.
and homogeneous effect on tradition (Fuller Taylors position clearly differs from Webers
1984, 2003), or secularism on religion. As careful avoidance of truth claims about, or spe-
Spencer (1995) notes in a thoughtful review of cic denitions of, religion. However, to an an-
Tambiahs (1992) account of Sinhala nation- thropologist, and for all the range of his philo-
alism, these problems are heightened where sophical sources (especially Hegel), Taylors
religious violence is to be explained. The ap- project often reads as an extended meditation
past are relatively unimportant. This misleads For Taylor, as for Dumont (1985) and again
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
not only because preindustrial European his- here recalling Weber (1946), the origins of the
tory was scarcely marked by social stasis, but secular therefore do not only lie with devel-
also because the possibility of radical scepticism opments in state politics, nor indeed with the
within the allegedly homogeneous lifeworlds of Enlightenment, but with earlier developments
the traditional past has been charted by several in which Christian theology ironically played a
historians (e.g., Fulton 2002, p. 65). It is a mis- crucial part (Taylor 2007, pp. 19, 75).
take to imply that religious pluralism is found The vast synthetic reach of Taylors text is a
only in modern contexts because the compari- feature of his argument. He wishes to demon-
son with the pluralism of the ancient world is strate that Christian belief and contemporary
well known; Taylor, for instance, discusses it atheistic humanism are philosophical cousins,
at length, evolving the argument that classical not irreconcilable opposites, and thus (con-
pluralism and atheism did not appeal to a mass tra Dawkins et al.) to restore the possibility
audience, whereas European movements after that Christian thinking contributes to modern
humanism were able to do so (Taylor 2007, debate on equal terms. Taylor thus expresses
pp. 8084). In fact, the more detailed histori- sympathy for the views of the radical ortho-
cal information we have, the more complex it dox theologians including Milbank (1990) and
becomes to answer the central question Tay- Pickstock (1998), Milbank having argued some
lor himself sets: Why is it difcult to believe time ago that once there was no secular; the
in God in the Western present, and why was it secular as a domain had to be instituted or imag-
difcult not to at periods of the European past ined (Milbank 1990, p. 9, emphasis in original).
(Taylor 2007, p. 25)? For Taylor, it requires 896 Milbanks perspective differs from Taylors in
pages to begin to trace the unfolding histori- locating the crucial turn in Western thinking
cal processes through which the modern secu- much earlier: in deformations of the theology
lar came to be thinkable and to feel normal. He of Augustine. Dumont (1985) and others have
attempts to trace these transformations in the also suggested an early medieval turning point
North Atlantic world (the heir to Latin Chris- for the crucial developments of Western secu-
tianity), viewed not as the subtraction of illusion larism. Taylor (2007) recognizes these views in
from reality but as the creation of new forms of an epilogue that argues for the validity of the
experience that had never previously existed but many stories (p. 773). One consequent dif-
which nonetheless come to seem like the obvi- culty with Taylors text is determining where
ous medium in which we live. exactly he differs from many of the authors he
Taylor maintains that secularity did not de- discusses or why some issues and approaches,
velop in a simple linear fashion, but rather which might seem equally consequential (such
through a series of doublings-back, reprises and as the development of capitalist institutions),
ironies that allow, even in modern times, for the are discussed relatively little.
96 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The author is not aware of any afliations, memberships, funding, or nancial holdings that might
be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author offers particular thanks to Chris Fuller and to Simon Jarvis.
LITERATURE CITED
Asad T. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore, MD:
Johns Hopkins Univ. Press
Asad T. 2001. Reading a Modern Classic; W.C. Smiths The Meaning and End of Religion. In Religion and Media,
ed. H De Vries, S Weber, pp. 13150. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
Asad T. 2003. Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
Asad T. 2006. Trying to understand French Secularism. In Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular
World, ed. H de Vries, LE Sullivan, pp. 494526, 76372. New York: Fordham Univ. Press
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Bangstad S. 2009. Contesting Secularism(s): secularism and Islam in the work of Talal Asad. Anthropol. Theory
9(2):188208
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Beattie T. 2007. The New Atheists: The Twilight of Reason and the War on Religion. London: Orbis
Benthall J. 2009. Review of Beyond belief. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 9, pp. 35
Berger P. 1990 [1967]. The Sacred Canopy. New York: Anchor
Beteille A. 1994. Secularism and intellectuals. Econ. Pol. Wkly. 29:55966
Bloch M. 2008. Why religion is nothing special, but is central. Phil. Trans. R. Soc B 363:205561
Bowen J. 2008. Why the French Dont Like Headscarves: Islam, the State and Public Space. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press
Bowen J. 2009. Can Islam be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in Secularist State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press
Boyer PL. 2001. Religion Explained: The Human Instincts that Fashion Gods, Spirits and Ancestors. London:
Heinemann
Bruce S. 1996. Religion in the Modern World: Cathedrals to Cults. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press
Bruce S. 2002. God is Dead: Secularization in the West. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press
Cannell F. 2006. Introduction. In The Anthropology of Christianity, pp. 150. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
Cannell F. 2008. Review of Keane, Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter.
Indonesia 85:14760
Casanova J. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press
Casanova J. 2006. Secularization revisited: a reply to Talal Asad. In Powers of the Secular Modern, ed. D Scott,
C Hirschkind, pp. 1230. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
Caton S. 2006. What is an authorizing discourse? See Hirschkind & Scott 2006, pp. 3157
Chatterjee P. 1993. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Fragments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press
Chatterji PC. 1984. Secular Values for Secular India. Delhi: L. Chatterji
Connolly W. 1999. Why I Am Not a Secularist. Minneapolis: Univ. Minn. Press
Corbridge S, Harriss J. 2000. Reinventing India: Liberalization, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy.
Cambridge, UK: Polity
Das V. 2006. Secularism and the argument from nature. See Hirschkind & Scott 2006, pp. 93112
Davie G. 1994. Britain Since 1945: Believing Without Belonging. Oxford: Blackwell
Dawkins R. 2006. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton and Mifn
Dobellaere K. 1998. Secularization. In Encylopedia of Religion and Society, ed. WH Swatos Jr. London: Sage.
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/ency/secularization.htm
DSouza PR. 1985. The church and politics. In Secularism and Liberation: Perspectives and Strategies for India.
ed. RC Heredia, E Mathias. New Delhi: Ind. Soc. Inst.
Dumont L. 1985. A modied view of our origins: the Christian beginnings of modern individualism. In The
Category of the Person: Anthropology, Philosophy, History, ed. M Carrithers, S Collins, S Lukes, pp. 93122.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
Durkheim E. 1971 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. London: George Allen & Unwin
98 Cannell
AN39CH06-Cannell ARI 12 August 2010 16:44
Eagleton T. 2009. Reason, Faith and Revolution: Reections on the God Debate. New Haven/London: Yale Univ.
Press
Engelke M. 2009. Strategic secularism: Bible advocacy in England. Soc. Anal. 53(1):3951
Feuchtwang S. 2009. India and China as spiritual nations: a comparative anthropology of histories. In Anthro-
pology of Contemporary China, ed. F Pieke. Soc. Anthropol. 19(1):1008
Fuller C. 1984. Servants of the Goddess: The Priests of a South Indian Temple. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ.
Press
Fuller C. 2003. The Renewal of the Priesthood: Modernity and Traditionalism in a South Indian Temple. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
Fulton R. 2002. From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 8001200. New York:
Columbia Univ. Press
Habermas J. 1992. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. London: Polity
Hansen T. 1999. The Saffron Wave: Democracy and Hindu Nationalism in Modern India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Univ. Press
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Harding S. 1987. Convicted by the Holy Spirit: the rhetoric of fundamental Baptist conversion. Am. Ethnol.
14(1):16781
Harding S. 1994. Imagining the last days: the politics of apocalyptic language. In Accounting for Fundamentalisms:
The Dynamic Character of Movements, ed. M Marty, RS Appleby, pp. 5778. Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press
Harding S. 2001. The Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press
Heelas P. 1996. The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization of Modernity. Oxford,
UK: Blackwell
Heelas P. 2008. Spiritualities of Life: New Age Romanticism and Consumptive Capitalism. Malden/Oxford:
Blackwell
Heelas P, Woodhead L, Seel B, Tusting K, Szerszynski B. 2004. The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is
Giving Way to Spirituality. London: Wiley Blackwell
Hefner R, Zaman MQ, eds. 2006. Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
Hirschkind C. 2006. The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics. New York: Columbia
Univ. Press
Hirschkind C, Mahmood S. 2002. Feminism, the Taliban, and politics of counter-insurgency. Anthropol. Q.
75(2):33954
Hirschkind C, Scott D, eds. 2006. Power of the Secular Modern: Talal Asad and his Interlocutors. Stanford, CA:
Stanford Univ. Press
Keane W. 2007. Christian Moderns: Freedom and Fetish in the Mission Encounter. Berkeley: Univ. Calif. Press
Kippenberg HG. 2005. Religious continuities and the path to disenchantment: the origin, sources and the-
oretical core of the religion section. In Max Webers Economy and Society: A Critical Companion, ed.
C Camic, PS Gorski, DM Trubek, pp. 16482. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press
Kumar R. 1989. The Making of a Nation: Essays in Indian History and Politics. Delhi: Manohar
Lambek M. 2005. Review of Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular. Am. Anthropol. 107(2):27677
Luckmann T. 1970. The Invisible Religion: The Problem of Religion in Modern Society. New York: MacMillan
Luhmann N. 1982. Religious Dogmatics and the Evolution of Societies, transl. P Beyer. New York: Mellen
Luhrmann T. 1989. Persuasions of the Witchs Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Oxford: Blackwell
Madan TN. 1987. Secularism in its place. J. Asia Stud. 46(4):74758
Madan TN. 1997. Modern Myths: Locked Minds: Secularism and Fundamentalism in India. Delhi: Oxford Univ.
Press
Mahajan G. 2003. Secularism. In The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, ed. V Das,
pp. 90836. Oxford/New York: Oxford Univ. Press
Mahmood S. 2001a. Feminist theory, embodiment and the docile agent: some reections on the Egyptian
Islamic Revival. Cult. Anthropol. 6(2):20236
Mahmood S. 2001b. Rehearsed sponteneity and the conventionality of ritual: disciplines of salat. Am. Ethnol.
28(4):82753
Mahmood S. 2005. The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press
Martin D. 2005. On Secularization: Towards a Revised Theory. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate
McBrien J, Pelkmans M. 2008. Turning Marx on his head: missionaries, extremists and archaic secularists
in Post-Soviet Krygyzstan. Crit. Anthropol. 28:87103
Milbank J. 1990. Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason. Oxford: Blackwell
Mitra SK. 1991. Desecularising the State: religion and politics in India after independence. Comp. Stud. Soc.
Hist. 33(4):75577
Meyer B. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity among the Ewe in Ghana. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
Univ. Press
Nandy A. 1985. An antisecularist manifesto. Seminar 315:112
Nandy A. 1992. The politics of secularism and the recovery of religious tolerance. In Mirrors of Violence:
Communities, Riots and Survivors in South Asia, ed. V Das, pp. 6993. Delhi: Oxford Univ. Press
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Navaro-Yashin Y. 2002. Faces of the State: Secularism and Public Life in Turkey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ.
Press
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
100 Cannell
AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29
Annual Review of
Anthropology
Prefatory Chapter
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Geoffrey A. Harrison p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 1
Archaeology
Preindustrial Markets and Marketing: Archaeological Perspectives
Gary M. Feinman and Christopher P. Garraty p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 167
Exhibiting Archaeology: Archaeology and Museums
Alex W. Barker p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 293
Dening Behavioral Modernity in the Context of Neandertal and
Anatomically Modern Human Populations
April Nowell p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 437
The Southwest School of Landscape Archaeology
Severin Fowles p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 453
Archaeology of the Eurasian Steppes and Mongolia
Bryan Hanks p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 469
Biological Anthropology
Miocene Hominids and the Origins of the African Apes and Humans
David R. Begun p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p67
Consanguineous Marriage and Human Evolution
A.H. Bittles and M.L. Black p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 193
Cooperative Breeding and its Signicance to the Demographic Success
of Humans
Karen L. Kramer p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 417
vii
AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29
Sociocultural Anthropology
The Reorganization of the Sensory World
Thomas Porcello, Louise Meintjes, Ana Maria Ochoa, and David W. Samuels p p p p p p p p p p p p51
The Anthropology of Secularism
Fenella Cannell p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p85
Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and Public
Health
James Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 149
Food and the Senses
David E. Sutton p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 209
The Anthropology of Credit and Debt
Gustav Peebles p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 225
Sense and the Senses: Anthropology and the Study of Autism
Olga Solomon p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 241
Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconict
Moment
Mary H. Moran p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p p 261
viii Contents
AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29
Contents ix
AR424-FM ARI 12 August 2010 19:29
Indexes
Errata
Access provided by University of California - Santa Cruz on 06/13/17. For personal use only.
Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2010.39:85-100. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
x Contents