Religious vs secular nationhood: ‘Multiple secularities’ in post-Soviet Armenia

This article draws on the notion of ‘cultural defense’ to examine how nationalism shapes contemporary contestations around religion and secularity in Armenia. While clearly relevant, this framework has rarely been used for the analysis of religious change in the Caucasus region as part of the broade...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Burchardt, Marian 1975- (Author) ; Hovhannisyan, Hovhannes (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage [2016]
In: Social compass
Year: 2016, Volume: 63, Issue: 4, Pages: 427-443
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Armenia / Secularism / Nation (university) / Religion / National consciousness
RelBib Classification:AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism
AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
CG Christianity and Politics
KBK Europe (East)
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:This article draws on the notion of ‘cultural defense’ to examine how nationalism shapes contemporary contestations around religion and secularity in Armenia. While clearly relevant, this framework has rarely been used for the analysis of religious change in the Caucasus region as part of the broader post-Soviet space. This article fills this lacuna. Simultaneously, it moves beyond the relatively narrow interest in the degree of secularization or reinforced religious nationalism as social outcomes of cultural defense situations. Instead, we are interested in how boundaries between religion and secular spheres in society are drawn in particular ways, how the resulting religious - secular configurations have evolved since the end of the Soviet Union - of which Armenia was a part - and how concepts of nationhood and nationalist mobilizations have shaped this process.
ISSN:1461-7404
Contains:Enthalten in: Social compass
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0037768616663981