Experiencing Globalization : Religion in Contemporary Contexts

Today, in an age of globalization, religion represents a potent force in the lives of billions of people worldwide. Yet when social theorists examine the impact of globalization on contemporary religious movements, they tend to focus on issues such as Islamic fundamentalism and threats to US or global security. This collection of essays takes a different approach, analyzing – with special reference to Asia – religion through lived experience. The key issues covered in the volume include: how religious impulses contribute to globalization; how religious groups and organizations repackage traditional beliefs for transcultural appeal; how religious adherents cope with external threats to identity; how new technologies are reshaping the nature of religious beliefs and images; and how local and global religious influences blend and/or clash. Far from religion being a subject of peripheral concern to globalization, the contributors demonstrate that from the most basic level of our interactions with the natural environment to the socio-political behavior of the “great religions” – and even to the profusion of folk and pop culture phenomena – the influence of religion upon globalization, and vice versa, is apparent at all levels.

"Derrick M. Nault is the director of the Asia Association for Global Studies (AAGS) in Tokyo, Japan, and editor in chief of the association’s official journal “Asia Journal of Global Studies” (AJGS). He currently lectures in world history and development studies at the University of Calgary, Canada.

Bei Dawei is an assistant professor in the foreign language department of Hsuan Chuang University, Taiwan.

Evangelos Voulgarakis specializes in symbols of national and religious heritage in contemporary times. He is an independent scholar in Taiwan.

Rab Paterson is a lecturer at the International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan, and a part-time lecturer at Dokkyo University’s Faculty of International Liberal Arts.

Cesar Andres-Miguel Suva holds a teaching fellowship and is currently a PhD candidate in history at the Australian National University."