Doctoral Dissertation Research: Governance, Urban Planning and Religious Modernity

近几十年来，宗教复兴运动已成为全球政治格局的重要组成部分。虽然许多人曾经认为现代化和城市化将伴随着世俗化，但基于信仰的运动及其政治影响只会在世界范围内变得更加相关。宗教政治不仅改变了政治领域；政治化也改变了宗教和宗教习俗。该项目旨在培养一名人类学研究生在科学严谨和实证数据收集和分析方面的方法，探讨政府中宗教制度化对公共领域、城市空间和虔诚实践的影响。通过研究治理对宗教实践、城市规划、资本主义、旅游和身份的影响，该项目促进了我们对社会宗教背景下的现代性和国家建设的理解。该项目还扩大了历史上代表性不足的群体在科学领域的参与，促进了代表性不足群体的教育，并通过在这些科研团体中的国际合作建设能力和科学基础设施。该研究员在芝加哥大学侯赛因·阿格拉玛博士的指导下，建议探索神社朝圣及其与不断变化的治理实践、宗教朝圣和虔诚的物质关系如何影响城市空间的组织、关于现代性的文化信仰以及自我和社区的概念。该项目考察了宗教制度化如何影响宗教信仰的流行实践，特别是在城市和非城市环境中具有不同水平的国家政治监督的神殿网络。研究将在三个地点进行（一个主要城市，一个以其神社而闻名的二级城市，一个被重新命名为宗教旅游中心的城市）。利用访谈、参与式观察和档案，研究将调查朝圣者、当地人、城市规划者、建筑师和其他利益相关者如何理解这些遗址的转变。这项研究将有助于政治人类学中关于治理的辩论，宗教人类学中关于朝圣、流动和旅游的理论，以及城市人类学中关于空间和宗派认同的分析。这项研究的结果将提供深入了解宗教政治是如何在地面上生活的，以及现代国家治理的行政和官僚实践如何改变宗教在公共生活中的作用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Religious revival movements have become a prominent part of the global political landscape in recent decades. Whereas many once assumed that modernization and urbanization would be accompanied by secularization, faith-based movements and their political effects have only become more relevant worldwide. Religious politics have not only transformed the political sphere; politicization has also changed religion and religious practices. This project, which trains an anthropology graduate student in methods of scientifically rigorous and empirical data collection and analysis, explores what impact the institutionalization of religion in government has on transforming the public sphere, urban space, and practices of piety. By examining the effects of governance on religious practices, urban planning, capitalism, tourism, and identity, the project advances our understanding of modernity and state-building in socio-religious contexts. The project also broadens the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science, contributes the education of underrepresented groups, and builds capacity and scientific infrastructure through international cooperation in these scientific research communities.The Fellow, under the supervision of Dr. Hussein Agrama of the University of Chicago, proposes to explore how shrine pilgrimage and its material relationship to shifting practices of governance, religious pilgrimage, and piety impact the organization of urban space, cultural beliefs about modernity, and conceptions of self and community. This project examines how institutionalization of religion has affected popular practices of religiosity, specifically a network of shrines in a range of urban and non-urban settings with varying levels of state political oversight. The research will be conducted at three sites (in major city, a secondary city that is known for its shrine, and a city that has been rebranded as a hub for religious tourism). Utilizing interviews, participant-observation, and archival, research will investigate how pilgrims, locals, urban planners, architects, and other stakeholders understand the transformation of these sites. This research will contribute to debates in political anthropology about governance, theories in the anthropology of religion about pilgrimage, mobility, and tourism, and analyses in urban anthropology about space and sectarian identity. Findings from this research will provide insight into how religious politics are lived on the ground and how the administrative and bureaucratic practices of governance in a modern state transform the role of religion in public life.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.