Daniel P. S. Goh - Böcker

In recent years, law and religion scholarship has increasingly emphasized the need to study the interaction of legal and religious ideas and institutions, norms and practices. The overall question that this scholarship explores may be stated as follows: how do legal and religious ideas and institutions, methods and mechanisms, beliefs and believers influence each other, for better and for worse, in the past, present and future? This volume engages this area of scholarship by examining how law regulates religion, and how religion responds to such regulations. It examines underlying norms influencing state regulation of religion, and challenges emerging from such regulation. Importantly, this volume will go beyond the conventional enquiries that draw upon the Anglo-European approaches and experiences, and emphasize instead Asian perspectives in order to expand and build upon existing understandings about the complex relationship between law and religion.

In recent years, law and religion scholarship has increasingly emphasized the need to study the interaction of legal and religious ideas and institutions, norms and practices. The overall question that this scholarship explores may be stated as follows: how do legal and religious ideas and institutions, methods and mechanisms, beliefs and believers influence each other, for better and for worse, in the past, present and future? This volume engages this area of scholarship by examining how law regulates religion, and how religion responds to such regulations. It examines underlying norms influencing state regulation of religion, and challenges emerging from such regulation. Importantly, this volume will go beyond the conventional enquiries that draw upon the Anglo-European approaches and experiences, and emphasize instead Asian perspectives in order to expand and build upon existing understandings about the complex relationship between law and religion.

Worlding multiculturalisms are practices that infuse our arbitrary cultural lives with new things from other cultures in poetic ways to enable us to dwell and be at home with the complexity of the world. In the context of the crisis of multiculturalism in the West and the growing obsolescence of state-based multiculturalism in the postcolonial world, this book offers examples of new practices of worlding multiculturalisms that go beyond issues of immigration, integration and identity. Contrasting Western and Asian notions of multiculturalism, this book does not focus on state issues, but rather, highlights manifestations of cultural exchange. The chapters draw on cultural studies approaches to document instances of worlding multiculturalisms that bring Asian cultures into conflict, dialogue and settlement with each other. Instances include an Asian American return novel set in Penang, the cultural productions and street performances of democracy marches in Malaysia, the campaigns to reclaim public spaces and citizenship rights by migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, the imaginary vistas opened up by Japanese popular culture consumed throughout Asia, the localisations of casino complexes in Macau and a shopping mall in Seoul, and an old municipal cemetery being defended from urban redevelopment in Singapore. Rather than merely globalizing forms of political diversity, these are instances with the potential to transform social relations and the very terms of cultural exchange.Worlding Multiculturalisms offers a truly interdisciplinary examination of multiculturalism in action. As such, it will appeal to students and scholars of cultural studies, Asian studies, Asian culture and society, cultural anthropology and sociology and political sociology.