RT Article
T1 Who owns religion? Scholars, Sikhs and the public sphere
JF Religion
VO 54
IS 2
SP 297
OP 319
A1 Singh, Nirvikar
LA English
PB Routledge
YR 2024
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1885439598
AB This paper revisits the question “Who Owns Religion?”, in the context of a recent analysis of debates in religious studies, marked by controversy and friction between members of religious traditions and scholars writing about those traditions. Habermas’s concept of a public sphere is at the center of an analysis by Laurie Patton that uses six case studies, including one involving the Sikh tradition. The paper reviews this conceptual framing and the accompanying analysis, provides a reconsideration of the Sikh case, which pertains to the construction of religious boundaries in that tradition, and draws more general lessons, including the functioning of academia as well as the contextual appropriateness of the concept of the public sphere. It argues that “eruptions” in the public sphere can be reduced by improvements in academic knowledge production, to provide a better foundation for navigating differences in modes of reasoning, or between the religious and the secular.
K1 Religious Studies
K1 Universities
K1 History
K1 Identity
K1 Habermas
K1 Public Sphere
K1 Sikhs
DO 10.1080/0048721X.2023.2289404