The introduction to this IDS Bulletin captures why this is the moment for re-engaging with the politics of gender and religion in a securitised post-9/11 context in which ‘Muslim communities’ have emerged as a political category in their own right. The article traces and exposes how religion has been deployed by international actors, donors, states, feminists, development practitioners, and hum...

This paper examines the changing nature of ethnic and religious identification in Malaysia, drawing upon a survey of attitudes conducted in three locations in Malaysia. The paper argues that the widely perceived political shift from a prevailing ethnic Malay/non-Malay dichotomy towards a more religious Muslim/non-Muslim dichotomy is more complex that previous analyses have suggested. Moreover, ...

Objective. Appalachia – historically a culturally and politically unique region of the United States – has been effectively ignored by contemporary political scientists. Using a unique measure of Appalachian residence, this paper analyzes racial attitudes, religion, and Appalachian opposition to the 2008 presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. Methods. I use regression analysis to assess the ex...

This paper reviews the literature on the religion–technology nexus, drawing up a research agenda and offering preliminary empirical insights. First, I stress the need to explore the new politics of space as a consequence of technological development, emphasizing questions about the role of religion in effecting a form of religious (neo)imperialism, and uneven access to techno-religious spaces. ...

The need to re-examine established ways of thinking about secularism and its relationship to feminism has arisen in the context of the confluence of a number of developments including: the increasing dominance of the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis; the expansion of postmodern critiques of Enlightenment rationality to encompass questions of religion; and sustained critiques of the ‘secularizati...