Goodman-Brown, Ross
(2022)
Locating Secularism within the Hostile Environment Conjuncture.
Master thesis, Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation.
Abstract
This thesis uses the lens of secularism to investigate the interrelation of processes that construct and reproduce ideas of sameness and difference. Advancing a critical understanding of secularism, I explore the ways secularism stipulates, recognises and controls religion in order to secure itself as the unquestioned indicator of modernity and progress. Throughout this essay, I question not only the imbrication of secularism and progress, but the very idea of progress. I argue that progress is primarily imagined in order to maintain unequal, colonially formed relations of power. With this in mind, I outline how the discourse of secularism functions to exacerbate difference within a conjuncture that is defined by displacement and immobility. This happens in three dialectical and dynamic ways. Firstly, through narratives and processes of integration, toleration and recognition that are overwhelmingly based on uneven balances of power and therefore, reinforce inequalities. Secondly, as a result of the extension and augmentation of the racialised other that is interchangeably signified by the Muslim/migrant and imbued with backwardness. Thirdly, imagined gender equality is expediently offered as proof of Western superiority, at the same time as sexual difference is reinforced and new ways of patriarchal domination are experienced. These themes are inherently interconnected, operate to propagate the entanglement of whiteness and are inseparable from capital accumulation and colonial dispossession. In essence, this project sheds light on a specific and, until now, under-theorised dimension of the imperial condition.
| Type: |
Thesis
(Master)
|
| Supervisors (RUG): |
| Supervisor | E-mail | Tutor organization | Tutor email |
|---|
| Wilson, E.K. | | Faculteit GGW, Christendom en Ideeengeschiedenis | E.K.Wilson@rug.nl | | Jedan, C. | | Faculteit GGW, Christendom en Ideeengeschiedenis | C.Jedan@rug.nl |
|
| Degree programme: |
Master Religion Conflict and Globalisation |
| Academic year: |
2021-2022 |
| Date of delivery: |
17 Feb 2023 08:56 |
| Last modified: |
17 Feb 2023 08:56 |
| URI: |
https://rcs.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/729 |
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