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

法国和德国的参与者利用他们正在进行的科学合作，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，特别是通过对比犹太宗教（基督教和伊斯兰教）和亚洲传统（印度教和佛教）分别导致的合理化和世俗化模式。总的来说，在现代化和进步的名义下，我们地区的当代国家倾向于迫使他们的人口，包括边缘人口，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-这意味着土著宗教的信徒“尚不信教”，因此预期将被“宗教化”。考虑到这一点，我们的工作假设是，在我们调查的各种情况下，地方世界观和习俗仪式做法的支持者之间存在着一种持续不断的紧张关系，他们认为这些世界观和习俗仪式做法是自给自足的，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支持者则声称具有普遍性，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确定为“宗教”并使之合法化，由谁确定，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.