Atheism in Southeast Asia:Nonbelievers’ ways of life in plural societies shaped by religion

东南亚的无神论:宗教塑造的多元社会中非信徒的生活方式

• 批准号: 491339839
• 负责人: Dr. Timo Duile
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Abteilung für Südostasienwissenschaft
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 资助国家: 德国
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/491339839?language=en
• 关键词: Atheism; Southeast; Asia; Nonbelievers; ways

In area studies, cultural anthropology, political science, and sociology, Southeast Asia is usually considered a merely religious space. In most research, especially societies in insular Southeast Asia appear as religious. Although religion plays, without doubt, an important role in these societies, this focus on religion tend to neglect the fact that more and more citizens in these countries consider themselves secular or even atheist. Especially during the last years, atheists have begun to organize in social media. Also, the topic of atheism was subject to some media coverage on conventional media in the region. Increasing religiosity in Southeast Asia seems to be accompanied by a growing number of atheist convictions, but the latter have not often been topic of research yet. The project aims to describe and compare atheist ways of life which emerge within the plural and religious societies in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines are examples of plural societies in which distinct ethnic and religious groups live in a single political unit, but their religious-historic contexts differ greatly from each other. The political unit, the state, is, just as the segments within society, shaped by religion to different degrees. Whereas church and state are formally separated in the Philippines and influence rather works through lobbying and politicians, religion and the state are institutionally interconnected in Indonesia and especially in Malaysia. All three societies are predominantly religious and the majority tend to be hostile towards atheist convictions and ways of life. The research investigates how atheists deal with pressure both from society and the state, how they develop coping mechanisms and constitute non-religious social spaces. The aim is to analyse how atheism as a form of life, as a fundamental feeling of being-in-the-world, comes to existence through distinct ways of life. As atheism constitutes a basic relation towards the world, this relation can be realized in many particular ways in regard, for instance, to social class, habitus, education, ethical or political convictions, and so on.In a first step, we aim to analyze discourses and state responds concerning atheism. These discourses, laws, and state reaction are compared between the three countries, with a special focus on the religious-historic contexts and positions of the respective major religions. In the following, we will describe distinct atheist ways of live by applying ethnographic methods. Thus, these ways of life are also subject to a comparative analysis. Finally, we ask whether there are locally/regionally specific patterns of atheist life and specific emic concepts of atheism within the religious plural societies in Southeast Asia.

在区域研究、文化人类学、政治学和社会学中，东南亚通常被认为只是一个宗教空间。在大多数研究中，特别是东南亚岛屿的社会都表现为宗教社会。尽管宗教毫无疑问在这些社会中发挥着重要作用，但这种对宗教的关注往往忽视了这样一个事实：这些国家越来越多的公民认为自己是世俗甚至无神论者。特别是在过去几年中，无神论者开始在社交媒体上组织起来。此外，无神论话题也受到该地区传统媒体的一些报道。东南亚宗教信仰的增加似乎伴随着无神论信念的增加，但后者尚未经常成为研究主题。该项目旨在描述和比较东南亚多元宗教社会中出现的无神论生活方式。印度尼西亚、马来西亚和菲律宾是多元社会的例子，其中不同的民族和宗教群体生活在一个政治单位中，但它们的宗教历史背景却截然不同。政治单位，即国家，就像社会中的各个部分一样，在不同程度上受到宗教的塑造。在菲律宾，教会和国家在形式上是分离的，影响力是通过游说和政治家发挥作用的，而在印度尼西亚，尤其是马来西亚，宗教和国家在制度上是相互联系的。这三个社会都以宗教为主，大多数人往往对无神论信仰和生活方式怀有敌意。该研究调查了无神论者如何应对来自社会和国家的压力，他们如何制定应对机制并构建非宗教社会空间。目的是分析无神论作为一种生活方式，作为一种存在于世的基本感觉，是如何通过不同的生活方式而存在的。由于无神论构成了与世界的基本关系，这种关系可以通过许多特定的方式来实现，例如，与社会阶级、习性、教育、伦理或政治信念等方面的关系。 第一步，我们的目标是分析有关无神论的话语和国家反应。对这三个国家的这些话语、法律和国家反应进行了比较，特别关注各自主要宗教的宗教历史背景和立场。在下文中，我们将通过应用民族志方法来描述不同的无神论者的生活方式。因此，这些生活方式也需要进行比较分析。最后，我们询问东南亚宗教多元社会中是否存在当地/区域特定的无神论者生活模式和特定的无神论主位概念。