Transforming Bodies and Religions: Powers and agencies in Europe

Abstract

This chapter provides various accounts that explore the relations between transforming bodies and religion from an amalgamation of theoretical perspectives. A variety of political, social, and economic transformations have influenced the perception of religion in Europe. In other words, religions are practised in everyday lives and given meaning through the day-to-day negotiations and experiences by both laypeople and clergy. Various attempts of identifying religion and secularity are examined to understand how constructions of (what is propagated as) the religious and the irreligious take place in society, but in particular how these acts of identification relate to transforming bodies. In particular, by focusing on these acts of identification, the authors show how categories of religion and secularity are enmeshed with, or even used as a distraction for, processes of inclusion and exclusion along the axes of class, ethnicity, race, and gender. Religion has played an important role in colonialism and continues to be a marker of difference among many people globally.