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Full-Text Articles in Religion
Class(Ify)Ing Christianity In Singapore: Tracing The Interlinked Spaces Of Privilege And Position, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Class(Ify)Ing Christianity In Singapore: Tracing The Interlinked Spaces Of Privilege And Position, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper considers how two facets of identity – religion and class – are performed, (re)produced and negotiated within the spaces of the Christian school, home and church in Singapore. We show how the social structuring of one space can inform and influence the structuring of another. Spaces of Christianity in Singapore tend to be mutually reinforcing, strengthening the linkages between religion and class, and in particular reifying the position of Christianity as a religion of the privileged classes. However, the ways in which Christian spaces are reified can become problematic when space is in fact shared with less privileged …
Forging Alternatively Sacred Spaces In Singapore's Integrated Religious Marketplace, Orlando Woods
Forging Alternatively Sacred Spaces In Singapore's Integrated Religious Marketplace, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper expands the notion of sacred space within the geographies of religion by arguing that spaces of religious praxis need to be understood in relation to the broader spatial logics within which they are embedded. Given that the spatial logics of urban environments tend to be secular and neoliberal in nature, it considers how religious groups respond to the realities of the marketplaces in which they operate by forging “alternatively sacred” spaces. These spaces augment the appeal of religious groups in non-religious ways, thus making them more competitive players in a religious marketplace. Specifically, it explores how independent churches …
Parallel Spaces Of Migrant (Non-)Integration In Singapore: Latent Politics Of Distance And Difference Within A Diverse Christian Community, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Parallel Spaces Of Migrant (Non-)Integration In Singapore: Latent Politics Of Distance And Difference Within A Diverse Christian Community, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores how the spatial practices of churches can lead to the (non-)integration of migrant communities. Whilst churches bring migrants and non-migrants together in space and time, so too can they cause them to become divided along ethnic, national, linguistic and/or class-based lines. In such cases, migrants can become integrated into a community of other migrants, which can discourage integration into the church-at-large, or into society more generally. These practices of (non-)integration give rise to parallel spaces of Christian praxis that can lead to the reproduction of distance and difference between (and within) migrant and non-migrant communities. To illustrate …
Disjunctures Of Belonging And Belief: Christian Migrants And The Bordering Of Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Disjunctures Of Belonging And Belief: Christian Migrants And The Bordering Of Identity In Singapore, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Migration results in people that are different from one another living in closer physicalproximity. Proximity increases the chances of encountering difference, and can lead to boththe formation of new communities, and the strengthening of old. As a religion that claims tointegrate people into a trans-ethnic, trans-territorial faith community, Christianity encouragessuch encounters, whilst Christian groups play an important role in mediating them.Disjunctures of belonging and belief are the outcomes that arise from encounters withdifference within spaces of Christianity. Drawing on 100 interviews conducted betweenAugust 2017 and February 2018, this paper unravels these disjunctures through a focus on theinterplay between migrant and …
Religious Urbanism In Singapore: Competition, Commercialism And Compromise In The Search For Space, Orlando Woods
Religious Urbanism In Singapore: Competition, Commercialism And Compromise In The Search For Space, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores the recursive relationship between religious praxisand urban environments. It advances the concept of “religious urbanism” to showhow urban environments play an active role in shaping the praxis of religion,and how religious groups adopt secular logics in response to the pressures ofurban environments. Such logics have given rise to new, more pragmatic forms ofspatial reproduction that lead to the desecularisation of space. Desecularisationinvolves religious groups diminishing the secular properties of space, ratherthan attempting to achieve any lasting notion of sacredness. Drawing on therestrictive religio-spatial context of Singapore, I demonstrate howfast-growing religious groups are forced to compete, commercialise, andcompromise …
Spaces Of The Religious Economy: Negotiating The Regulation Of Religious Space In Singapore, Orlando Woods
Spaces Of The Religious Economy: Negotiating The Regulation Of Religious Space In Singapore, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Over the past three decades, the theory of religious economy has been established, applied, debated, developed, and rejected. It has proven to be as divisive as any "general theory" of religion should be, and yet its core tenets continue to engage and unite scholars around the world. In response to broader shifts within the sociology of religion, this article reframes religious economy by advancing a spatial approach to its theorization. A spatial approach can help develop new perspectives on the regulation of religion, and the resistant agency of religious groups. With a focus on the "secular monopoly" of Singapore, it …
Religious Aspirations Among Urban Christians In Contemporary Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Religious Aspirations Among Urban Christians In Contemporary Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Recognizing that the Christians in Indonesia are not a homogeneous group, this article examines the various contested spiritual, social, and political aspirations of urban Christians in the contexts of the historical trajectory of Indonesian modernity, forces of globalization and urbanization, the role of capital, and the development of Islam - the indispensable religious 'Other' to this minority religion in contemporary Indonesia. It sheds light on the ways in which this minority exercises agency in using political participation and social activism as a counterbalance to the growing Islamization of Indonesia, and how they strategically utilize their extensive economic, social, and political …
Mapping Chineseness On The Landscape Of Christian Churches In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Mapping Chineseness On The Landscape Of Christian Churches In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Scholarship on the Chinese Indonesian community has largely been concerned with the tensions between the community and the majority non-Chinese (or pribumi). The fault lines were usually examined against the background of Suharto’s assimilation policy, the 1998 anti-Chinese riots, the stark imbalance of the nation’s wealth within this minority group, and Chinese loyalty – or chauvinism – in the time of nation-building, and in the face of the rise of modern China. Little attention has been given to Christianity as offering a shelter for the inconspicuous propagation of Chineseness; particularly in terms of the conduct of services in Chinese, the …
Between Evangelism And Multiculturalism: The Dynamics Of Christianity In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Between Evangelism And Multiculturalism: The Dynamics Of Christianity In Indonesia, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Christianity has experienced rapid growth in Indonesia, particularly the Evangelical and Pentecostal/Charismatic movements, which find fertile ground among the urban middle class. This phenomenon has given rise to fears of Christianisation among the Muslim majority, who perceive the Christian growth as a moral threat. Tensions between Christians and Muslims have been part and parcel of religious developments in Indonesia. The author addresses the ways in which Protestant churches in Indonesia negotiate between evangelism (to fulfil the ‘Great Commission’) on the one hand, and multiculturalism (peaceful coexistence with difference) on the other. The article will examine how Christians in Indonesia navigate …
Multicultural Citizenship Education In Indonesia: The Case Of A Chinese Christian School, Chang Yau Hoon
Multicultural Citizenship Education In Indonesia: The Case Of A Chinese Christian School, Chang Yau Hoon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This study investigates how multicultural citizenship education is taught in a Chinese Christian school in Jakarta, where multiculturalism is not a natural experience. Schoolyard ethnographic research was deployed to explore the reality of a ‘double minority’ — Chinese Christians — and how the citizenship of this marginal group is constructed and contested in national, school, and familial discourses. The article argues that it is necessary for schools to actively implement multicultural citizenship education in order to create a new generation of young adults who are empowered, tolerant, active, participatory citizens of Indonesia. As schools are a microcosm of the nation-state, …