Doctoral Dissertation Research: Resilience, Religion, and Political Change

该奖项的全部或部分资金来自《2021年美国救援计划法案》(公法117-2)。宗教机构与政府事务分离是民主政府的一项共同原则。在宗教归属与遗产和个人身份的其他方面相关联的环境中，世俗主义的原则可能会以不同的方式实施。这项博士论文研究通过韧性的理论视角来研究世俗主义和政治变革之间的相互关系，询问虔诚的个人是否以及如何融入新的概念和身份，以适应远离世俗主义的政治转变。除了培养一名博士生外，该项目还计划向学术和非学术受众广泛传播研究成果。具体地说，这个项目测试了一些假设，即民主政治转型导致宗教和世俗主义之间的距离越来越近，个人利用这种接近度作为应对针对身份认同的政治变化的一种手段。经过12个月的人种学田野调查，研究者使用参与者观察、半结构访谈、数字人种学和日记相结合的方法来检验这些假设。研究问题包括：(1)宗教个人如何理解和解释世俗主义是应对政治变化的一种方式；(2)个人如何将传统宗教原则与新元素结合起来应对政治变化。这项研究将复原力理论和宗教进行了新颖的结合，以调查人类如何适应不断变化的政治环境的广泛手段。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).The separation of religious institutions from governmental affairs is a common principle of democratic governments. In settings where religious affiliations are associated with other aspects of heritage and individuals’ identities, the principles of secularism may be implemented in varying ways. This doctoral dissertation research investigates reciprocal relationships between secularism and political change through the theoretical lens of resilience, asking whether and how devout individuals incorporate new concepts and identities to accommodate political shifts away from secularism. In addition to training a doctoral student, the project plans to disseminate findings widely to academic and non-academic audiences. Specifically, this project tests the hypotheses that democratic political transformations result in increasing proximity between religion and secularism, and that individuals leverage this proximity as a means of resilience to political changes targeting identity. Over twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, the investigators use a combination of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, digital ethnography, and diary methods to test these hypotheses. Research questions include (1) how religious individuals understand and interpret secularism as a way of responding to political change; and (2) how individuals use traditional religious principles in conjunction with novel elements in response to political change. The research contributes a novel synthesis of resilience theory and religion to investigate the broad means by which humans adjust to changing political environments.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.