Local Traditions and World Religions: The Appropriation of "Religion" in Southeast Asia and Beyond

这一研究项目的法国和德国参与者正在进行科学合作，旨在调查东南亚和其他地区人民对“宗教”进行本地化和侵占的各种过程，特别是通过对比分别由闪族宗教(基督教和伊斯兰教)和亚洲传统(印度教和佛教)导致的合理化和世俗化模式。总体而言，以现代性和进步的名义，我们地区的当代国家倾向于向包括边缘国家在内的人口施压，要求他们拥有一种“宗教”。在这方面，我们将宗教视为一个过程--“宗教化”的过程--意味着土著宗教的追随者“尚未信教”，因此有望被“宗教化”。考虑到这一观点，我们的工作假设是，在我们调查的各种案例中，存在着一种持续和不断变化的紧张关系，一方是当地世界观和习俗的支持者，他们认为当地世界观和习俗既自给自足，本身就配得上“宗教”的标签；另一方是起源于外国的跨地区宗教的倡导者，他们主张普世主义，通常否认这些地方传统有“宗教”的资格。因此，在我们的每一个案例研究中，我们的目的是阐明什么被认定为“宗教”并使之合法化，由谁、出于什么目的、在什么情况下和在什么政治条件下。

Drawing upon their ongoing scientific collaboration, the French and German participants to this research project aim at investigating various processes of localization and appropriation of "religion" by peoples in Southeast Asia and beyond, specifically by contrasting the modes of rationalization and secularization resulting respectively from Semitic religions (Christianity and Islam) and Asian traditions (Hinduism and Buddhism). On the whole, in the name of modernity and progress, the contemporary states in our region tend to press their populations, including marginal ones, to have a "religion". In this respect, we address religion as a process - the process of "religionization" -, implying that adherents of indigenous religions are "not yet religious" and therefore are expected to be "religionized". With this perspective in mind, our working hypothesis is that, in the various cases we are investigating, there exists an ongoing and shifting tension between proponents of local world views and customary ritual practices, who consider them as both self-sufficient and deserving the label "religion" in their own right, and advocates of a translocal religion of foreign origin, having a claim to universalism, who commonly deny those local traditions the qualification of "religion". Accordingly, in each of our case studies, we purpose to elucidate what gets identified and legitimized as "religion", by whom, for what purpose, in which circumstances and under what political conditions.