Religion and Minority: lived religion, migration and marginalities in secular societies

“宗教与少数群体：世俗社会中的活宗教、移徙和边缘化”研究小组的目的是在英国和日本大学从事“宗教少数群体”和宗教组织内少数群体研究的研究人员之间开展长期合作。该网络的目标是调查宗教背景下的“边缘化”和“少数群体”概念，不仅从少数群体在不同文化和社会背景下如何构建和定义的角度，而且还从边缘化群体如何利用宗教来构建其相对于更大社会的身份和/或谈判其在宗教传统中的地位的角度。该项目旨在建立一个由英国和日本经验丰富的早期职业研究人员组成的国际网络，利用各种案例研究探索上述主题，并促进当代社会宗教研究的创新方法和途径。讨论少数群体宗教需要讨论“界限”，例如在特定背景下如何定义和看待一个群体为“少数群体”，以及边缘化的定义如何不是预先确定的或永久的，而是通过社会进程形成的，并在历史上波动，以及少数群体或边缘群体如何利用宗教来表达他们的身份和社会地位。在那里，移民社区建立了自己的宗教传统，而近几十年来出现了许多新的或“替代”团体--日本--一个现代出现了许多“新”宗教的社会，人们对日本以外的宗教传统表现出兴趣，不同的移民群体试图通过宗教参与来保持自己的身份，提供了一个引人注目的跨文化背景下，通过审查这些问题。虽然有关“新”，“少数”和“替代宗教”的问题的研究已经在英国和日本的背景下进行，这些主要是在其特定的文化领域内运作。我们的观点是，通过共同努力，我们可以加强每一方的方法，并加强比较框架，通过这些框架，可以对宗教少数群体问题形成更科学、更细致的理解。我们将加强以西方为中心和以日本为中心的研究，使专门研究这些领域的学者能够共同努力，从彼此的研究领域中学习，并通过这种跨文化接触加强自己的理解，并了解他们正在研究的问题如何在其他社会和文化背景下发挥作用。更雄心勃勃的是，通过结合对少数群体和宗教组织内部其他声音的分析，研究小组有可能产生创新的理论框架，有助于，但也超越，讨论“宗教的定义”和目前关于“世俗主义/世俗/宗教”的辩论“在不同的文化背景下，现在正在英国和日本的学术界以及更广泛的宗教研究领域进行广泛的调查和辩论。事实上，我们太经常地把焦点放在欧美案例或美欧比较上，从而缩小了我们对宗教、少数民族和世俗主义的理解。使宗教社会学失去中心地位是现在要采取的一个重要步骤。通过吸收俄罗斯和马来西亚等其他背景的专家，它还将鼓励研究人员超越以欧洲/北美（和日本）为中心的少数群体宗教观点。此外，研究小组将分享研究方法和实践（通过共同进行实地考察），并为ECR研究人员实施创新的联合培训，重点是发展跨文化技能。

The aim of the "Religion and Minority: lived religion, migration and marginalities in secular societies" research group is to develop a long-term collaboration between researchers based at UK and Japan universities working on 'religious minority' and on minority groups inside religious organizations. The objective of the network is to investigate 'marginality' and the concept of 'minority' in religious contexts, not only from the point of view of how minority groups are constructed and defined in different cultural and social contexts, but also in terms of how marginalised groups use religion to construct their identity vis-à-vis the larger society and/or to negotiate their place inside religious traditions. The project seeks to establish an international network of experienced and early-career researchers in the UK and Japan to explore the above-mentioned topics using a variety of case studies, and to foster innovative methodologies and approaches to the study of religion in contemporary society. Discussing minority religion entails a conversation about 'boundaries', for example how a group is defined and perceived as 'minority' in a specific context, but also about how definitions of marginality are not predetermined or permanent, but are formed through social processes and fluctuate historically, and also about how religion is used by minority or marginalized groups to articulate their identity and status in society.The UK- where immigrant communities have established their own religious traditions, while numerous new or 'alternative' groups have emerged in recent decades- and Japan- a society where numerous 'new' religions have emerged in modern times, where people have displayed interests in religious traditions from outside Japan and where different immigrant groups are trying to retain their identities through religious engagement- provide a striking cross-cultural context through which to examine these issues. While studies of issues related to 'new' , 'minority' and 'alternative religions have been carried out in UK and Japanese contexts, these have largely operated within their particular cultural spheres. Our view is that by working together we can strengthen the approaches of each, and enhance comparative frameworks through which more scientifically nuanced understandings of religious minority issues can be developed. We will enhance both Western-centred and Japan-centred studies by enabling scholars specializing in these areas to work together, learn from each other's study areas, and strengthen their own understandings via such cross-cultural engagement and seeing how the issues they are studying play out in other social and cultural contexts. More ambitiously, by combining an analysis of minority groups and of alternative voices inside religious organizations the research group has the potential to produce innovative theoretical frameworks, contributing to, but also going beyond, discussions on 'definitions of religion' and on the current debates on 'secularism/secularities/religion(s)' in different cultural contexts now being widely investigated and debated in UK and Japan academia and in the wider field of the study of religion. Indeed, too often we have narrowed our understanding of religion, minorities and secularism, by focusing on Euro-American cases, or a US/Europe comparison. De-centering the sociology of religion is now an important move to make. By also including experts on other contexts, such as Russia and Malaysia, it will also encourage researchers to go beyond European/North American (and Japanese) centred perspectives on minority religion. Furthermore the research group will share research methodologies and practices (by conducting fieldwork together) and implement innovative joint training for ECR researchers with a focus on developing intercultural skills.