Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-23T09:06:12.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Religious Resurgence in Contemporary Asia: Southeast Asian Perspectives on Capitalism, the State, and the New Piety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Robert W. Hefner
Get access

Abstract

Large portions of East and Southeast Asia are in the throes of a historically unprecedented upsurge in religious observance and association. Many of the new varieties of religiosity are more popular, voluntary, and laity based than the religions of yesteryear. Many are also marked by the heightened participation of women, and an emphasis on inner-worldly well-being as well as otherworldly transcendence. Focusing on Southeast Asia, but with references to developments in China, this article examines the social and moral genealogy of eastern Asia's religious vitalization. Many analysts have emphasized the influence of postcolonial secularisms, neoliberal disciplines, and ascendant civil societies in the religious resurgence. Although these factors have indeed played a role, the macro-narratives of the state, capital, and democratization often give insufficient attention to the micro- and meso-passions of self, family, and neighborhood, all of which have contributed to the popularization and proximatization of once restricted spiritual disciplines.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 69 , Issue 4 , November 2010 , pp. 1031 - 1047
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

List of References

Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashiwa, Yoshiko, and Wank, David L., eds. 2009. Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Bays, Daniel. 2003. “Chinese Protestant Christianity Today.” In Religion in China Today, ed. Overmyer, Daniel L., 182–98. China Quarterly Special Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bell, Daniel. 1976. The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert N. 1957. Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bellah, Robert N., ed. 1965. Religion and Progress in Modern Asia. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Bubalo, Anthony, Fealy, Greg, and Mason, Whit. 2008. Zealous Democrats: Islamism and Democracy in Egypt, Indonesia and Turkey. Double Bay, New South Wales: Lowy Institute.Google Scholar
Campbell, Colin. 1987. The Romantic Ethic and the Spirit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cederroth, Sven. 1981. The Spell of the Ancestors and the Power of Mekkah: A Sasak Community on Lombok. Goteborg: Universitatis Gothoburgensis.Google Scholar
Cederroth, Sven. 1996. “From Ancestor Worship to Monotheism: Politics of Religion in Lombok.” Temenos 32:7–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chau, Adam Yuet. 2006. Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Nancy N. 2003. “Healing Sects and Anti-Cult Campaigns.” In Religion in China Today, ed. Overmyer, Daniel L., 199–214. China Quarterly Special Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Coleman, Simon M. 1995. “America Loves Sweden: Prosperity Theology and the Cultures of Capitalism.” In Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches, ed. Roberts, Richard H., 161–79. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Comaroff, Jean, and Comaroff, John L.. 2003. “Ethnography on an Awkward Scale: Postcolonial Anthropology and the Violence of Abstraction.” Ethnography 4 (2): 147–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cook, Michael. 2000. Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, Winston. 1992. Japanese Religion and Society: Paradigms of Structure and Change. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Dean, Kenneth. 2003. “Local Communal Religion in Contemporary South-east China.” In Religion in China Today, ed. Overmyer, Daniel L., 32–52. China Quarterly Special Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Edwards, Bob, and Foley, Michael W.. 2001. “Civil Society and Social Capital: A Primer.” In Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective, ed. Edwards, Bob, Foley, Michael W., and Diani, Mario, 1–14. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England.Google Scholar
Eickelman, Dale F. 1992. “Mass Higher Education and the Religious Imagination in Contemporary Arab Societies.” American Ethnologist 19 (4): 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Englund, Harri, and Leach, James. 2000. “Ethnography and Meta-Narratives of Modernity.” Current Anthropology 41 (2): 225–48.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freston, Paul. 2008. “The Many Faces of Evangelical Politics in Latin America.” In Evangelical Christianity and Democracy in Latin America, ed. Freston, Paul, 3–36. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gade, Anna M. 2004. Perfection Makes Practice: Learning, Emotion, and the Recited Qur'ân in Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1960. Religion of Java. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 1965. The Social History of an Indonesian Town. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Haenni, Patrick. 2005. L'Islam de marché: L'autre révolution conservatrice [Market Islam: The other conservative revolution]. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Hardacre, Helen. 1984. Lay Buddhism in Contemporary Japan: Reiyûkai Kyôdan. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hasan, Noorhaidi. 2006. Laskar Jihad: Islam, Militancy, and the Quest for Identity in Post-New Order Indonesia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hefner, Robert W. 1998. “On the History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Democratic Ideal.” In Democratic Civility: The History and Cross-Cultural Possibility of a Modern Political Ideal, ed. Hefner, Robert W., 3–49. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert W.. 2001. “Introduction: Multiculturalism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia.” In The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, ed. Hefner, Robert W., 1–58. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert W.. 2003. “Civic Pluralism Denied? The New Media and Jihadi Violence in Indonesia.” In New Media in the Muslim World: The Emerging Public Sphere, ed. Eickelman, Dale F. and Anderson, Jon W., 158–79. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert W.. 2005. “Muslim Democrats and Islamist Violence in Post-Soeharto Indonesia.” In Remaking Muslim Politics: Pluralism, Contestation, Democratization, ed. Hefner, Robert W., 273–301. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hefner, Robert W.. 2009. “The Politics and Cultures of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia.” In Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of Islamic Education in Southeast Asia, ed. Hefner, Robert W., 1–54. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Hoesterey, James. 2008. “Marketing Morality: The Rise, Fall and Rebranding of Aa Gym.” In Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, ed. Fealy, Greg and White, Sally, 95–112. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar
Howell, Brian M. 2008. Christianity in the Local Context: Southern Baptists in the Philippines. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huang, C. Julia. 2009. Charisma and Compassion: Cheng Yen and the Buddhist Tzu Chi Movement. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordt, Ingrid. 2007. Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power. Ohio University Research in International Studies, Southeast Asia Series 115. Athens: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Keane, John. 1996. Reflections on Violence. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Keyes, Charles. 1987. Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Khosravi, Shahram. 2007. Young and Defiant in Tehran. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Luong, Hy V. 2010. Tradition, Revolution, and Market Economy in a North Vietnamese Village, 1925–2006. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Madsen, Richard. 2007. Democracy's Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. 2005. The Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Malarney, Shaun Kingsley. 2002. Culture, Ritual and Revolution in Vietnam. New York: RoutledgeCurzon.Google Scholar
Martin, David. 1990. Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Martin, David. 2002. Pentecostalism: The World Their Parish. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Maxwell, David. 2006. African Gifts of the Spirit: Pentecostalism and the Rise of a Zimbabwean Transnational Religious Movement. Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
McLeod, Hugh. 2007. The Religious Crisis of the 1960s. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Metraux, Daniel A. 1996. “Soka Gakkai: Buddhism and the Creation of a Harmonious and Peaceful Society.” In Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Queen, Christopher S. and King, Sallie B., 365–400. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Njoto-Feillard, Gwenaël. 2010. “Islam et modernité économique en Indonésie” [Islam and economic modernity in Indonesia]. PhD diss., Institut d’Études Politique de Paris, École Doctoral de Sciences PO.Google Scholar
Overmyer, Daniel L., ed. 2003. Religion in China Today. China Quarterly Special Issue 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Peletz, Michael G. 1997. “‘Ordinary Muslims’ and Muslim Resurgents in Contemporary Malaysia: Notes on an Ambivalent Relationship.” In Islam in an Era of Nation-States: Politics and Religious Renewal in Muslim Southeast Asia, ed. Hefner, Robert W. and Horvatich, Patricia, 231–72. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Robbins, Joel. 2004. “The Globalization of Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity.” Annual Review of Anthropology 33:117–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Richard H., ed. 1995. Religion and the Transformations of Capitalism: Comparative Approaches. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rudnyckyj, Daromir. 2009. “Market Islam in Indonesia.” Special issue, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, n.s., 15:S183–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Salman. 2006. “The Tarbiyah Movement: Why People Join This Indonesian Contemporary Islamic Movement.” Studia Islamika 13 (2): 171–240.Google Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 1995. “The Theravada Buddhist Engagement with Modernity.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 26 (2): 307–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schober, Juliane. 2005. “Buddhist Visions of Moral Authority and Civil Society: The Search for the Post-Colonial State in Burma.” In Burma at the Turn of the 21st Century, ed. Skidmore, Monique, 113–33. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Scott, Rachelle M. 2009. Nirvana for Sale? Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakâya Temple in Contemporary Thailand. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Seligman, Adam B., Weller, Robert P., Puett, Michael J., and Simon, Bennett. 2008. Ritual and Its Consequences: An Essay on the Limits of Sincerity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith-Hefner, Nancy J. 2007. “Javanese Women and the Veil in Post-Soeharto Indonesia.” Journal of Asian Studies 66 (2): 389–420.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stepan, Alfred. 2001. “The World's Religious Systems and Democracy: Crafting the ‘Twin Tolerations.’” In Arguing Comparative Politics, by Stepan, Alfred, 213–53. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swearer, Donald K. 1995. The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, James L. 1997. “Thamma-chat: Activist Monks and Competing Discourses of Nature and Nation in Northeastern Thailand.” In Seeing Forests for Trees: Environment and Environmentalism in Thailand, ed. Hirsch, Philip, 137–69. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.Google Scholar
Taylor, Philip. 2004. Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vala, Carsten T. 2009. “Pathways to the Pulpit: Leadership Training in ‘Patriotic’ and Unregistered Chinese Protestant Churches.” In Making Religion, Making the State: The Politics of Religion in Modern China, ed. Ashiwa, Yoshiko and Wank, David. L., 126–50. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Van der Veer, Peter. 2001. Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, Robert P. 1994. “Capitalism, Community, and the Rise of Amoral Cults in Taiwan.” In Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia, ed. Keyes, Charles F., Kendall, Laurel, and Hardacre, Helen, 141–64. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, Robert P.. 1999. Alternate Civilities: Democracy and Culture in China and Taiwan. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Wiegele, Katharine L. 2005. Investing in Miracles: El Shaddai and the Transformation of Popular Catholicism in the Philippines. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Ian Douglas. 2008. “‘As Long as It's Halal’: Preman in Jakarta.” In Expressing Islam: Religious Life and Politics in Indonesia, ed. Fealy, Greg and White, Sally, 192–210. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.Google Scholar