Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia

The book casts new light on the relation between religion and modernity in Southeast Asia and beyond.

Gottowik Volker :

Volker Gottowik is postdoctoral researcher in the area studies network ‘Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia’ (DORISEA) at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Heidelberg.

'The most significant contribution of this book is that it uses grounded empirical examples to engage with social theory, and in particular modernity, or should I say, modernities. It provides anthropologists, and more generally social scientists, with a generous tapestry from which to engage with ideas of religion, spirituality and the intellectual lineages of modernity.' - Jeremy Kingsley, Swinburne Law School, Melbourne, Australia, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Volume 18, 2017

'The book does an excellent job in capturing the way in which religion is conceived of and expressed in a popular context. Together these papers really do show - as it says in the blurb - that 'religion and modernity are no longer perceived as contradictory' and that 'a revision of the western notion of religion is required to understand the complexity of 'multiple modernitites' in a globalised world'. This reviewer agrees wholeheartedly.' - Michael Hitchcock, ICEE, Goldsmiths, University of London, Aseasuk News no. 57 Spring 2015

"An excellent collection of ethnographically and historically well-informed and well-written essays. [...] for many the book will serve as a welcome introduction to non-Anglophone research into Southeast Asia" - Gregory Forth, Pacific Affairs