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

根据他们正在进行的科学合作，这项研究项目的法国和德国参与者旨在调查东南亚及其他地区人民对“宗教”的本地化和挪用的各种过程，特别是通过对比分别由闪米特宗教（基督教和伊斯兰教）和亚洲传统（印度教和佛教）产生的合理化和世俗化模式。总的来说，在现代性和进步的名义下，我们地区的当代国家倾向于迫使他们的人民，包括边缘人，拥有一种“宗教”。在这方面，我们把宗教视为一个进程- -“宗教化”进程- -这意味着土著宗教的信徒“尚未信教”，因此期望他们“宗教化”。考虑到这一观点，我们的工作假设是，在我们正在调查的各种情况下，当地世界观和习俗仪式的支持者之间存在着持续不断的紧张关系，他们认为它们既是自给自足的，本身就应该被贴上“宗教”的标签，而来自外国的跨地方宗教的倡导者则声称具有普遍主义，他们通常否认这些地方传统的“宗教”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并合法化为“宗教”，由谁，出于什么目的，在什么情况下，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.