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Managing religions: State responses to religious diversity
Turner, Bryan
Turner, Bryan
Author
Abstract
After 9/11 there is a general sense of the crisis of liberalism and secularism, and the need for greater security and surveillance. Diasporic Muslim communities have been increasingly the target of government interventions and investigations, resulting in various forms of governmentality that in fact constitute a ‘management of Muslims.’ The traditional strategies of benign neglect have been replaced by periods of intense governmental activity. The idea of ‘managing Muslims’ is often disguised by a more neutral terminology such as pluralism or multiculturalism. This article examines two versions of the management of religions from policies of ‘upgrading’ or retraining of Muslims for modernity to more robust policies of containment, rendition and seclusion. The result of securitisation and globalisation is the rise of a new type of society that I call ‘the enclave society.’ In such societies governments are creating new policies of ‘enclavement’ to quarantine communities that are undesirable or unwanted or dangerous. The mobility of a global society is now being constrained by encirclement and enclavement through building walls, ghettoes, catchments and no-go areas. Such policies are likely to be counter productive, requiring an escalation of draconian interventions.
Keywords
Enclave(ment), Exclusion, Governmentality, Liberalism, Multiculturalism
Date
2007
Type
Journal article
Journal
Contemporary Islam
Book
Volume
1
Issue
2
Page Range
123-137
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
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Controlled