Workshop: Social Upheaval and Religious Innovation

University Of Kentucky Research Foundation, Lexington KY

Investigators

Abstract

This award supports a workshop that will convene an international group of social scientists to consider the relationship between social upheaval and religious innovation. In human societies, periods of great social upheaval, whether due to war, economic change or natural disaster, tend to be accompanied by religious innovation. In such circumstances, people may feel compelled to change religious practices, institutions, or even create new religions. But while it is clear that social upheaval and religious innovation are causally related, much less is known about the nature of these linkages. For example, do social upheavals give rise to religious innovations, is the reverse more often true, or do the causal arrows fly in both directions? The global diversity of both the nature of the upheavals and the religions involved make such questions hard to answer systematically. Therefore, to better understand the relationship between social upheaval and religious change, this workshop has chosen a unique approach. It will focus on a single site where a recent social upheaval has been experienced by all but there are multiple innovating religions operating in the post-upheaval period. The site is the South Asian country of Sri Lanka, a multi-ethnic, religiously plural state, where Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, and many new religious movements co-exist. In 2009, Sri Lanka concluded a highly disruptive, twenty-six year long, inter-ethnic civil war, costing tens of thousands of lives. The social scientists participating in this workshop comprise specialists in the full gamut of Sri Lanka's traditional religions and new religious movements. The aims of this workshop are three: empirical, theoretical, and practical. Empirically, the workshop will document and compare religious innovation across Sri Lanka in the post-war period, searching for common underlying patterns. The presence or absence of such patterns would set distinct theoretical directions for further work. Practically, the workshop aims use these findings to create a set of common research questions to coordinate future, collaborative research, to leverage the research opportunity presented by having multiple religions present in a single post-war setting. The proceedings of the workshop will be taped for use by other scholars and students. Findings will be disseminated through scholarly publication and public presentations.