Kath Maguire,
Exeter University
Democratising
Social Capital
There is a lot
of interest, on the part of government, in involving faith groups
in the processes of social and economic regeneration and the provision
of social welfare, particularly to marginal or socially excluded groups.
Both the Home Office Active Community Unit and Urban Policy Unit of
the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) are looking at how
the knowledge, resources and good-will of faith groups can be utilised
to enhance government initiatives. Religious groups are seen as potential
gateways for individuals to participate in the voluntary sector and
as channels to access groups that welfare services find difficult
to reach. In order to understand the potentials and pitfalls of these
partnerships it may be necessary to develop an understanding of how
faith groups create this social capital, how it can be maintained,
and whether this model can be applied to other, secular social groups.
This presentation
will draw upon research undertaken for the East of England Faiths
Leadership Conference 'Faith in Action' (Morris, Maguire and Kartupelis
2003) to explore how members of some faith groups, working together,
are not only engendering social capital through the creation of networks
and structures that enable mutual support, but broadening access across
class and generational divisions and between ethnic groups. This offers
an opportunity to develop a conceptual model of how the ethos of communality
and service shared by many faith groups can facilitate a democratization
of social capital.
Claire Mitchell, Queens University Belfast
Political Marginalisation and Religious Identity
Religious identities
are highly responsive to political effects. Whilst religious positions
often seem fixed, stressing the unchanging nature of doctrine and
faith, they are surprisingly flexible. They can be adapted in line
with social and political experiences. Often, experiences of marginalisation
or perceived discrimination can lead a religious identification to
shift in emphasis. This is the case for many evangelical Protestants
in Northern Ireland after the current round of the peace process.
A majority of Protestants now oppose the Good Friday Agreement, which
is reflected in the swelling of the anti-Agreement unionist vote.
Unionist political discourse has become more defensive, concerned
with protecting 'Protestant rights'. Added to this is the fact that
the rest of Britain is now more secular, liberal and multicultural
than ever. No longer a Protestant state, evangelicals in Britain are
even more so on the fringes of political relevance than in Northern
Ireland.
The religious
response to these political developments has been mixed. Some evangelicals
have recognised the inevitability of change and have become more inclusive
and tolerant of other positions. Others have interpreted the situation
as one of religious apartheid and have become more fervent in their
religio-political opposition to change. However, the predominant response
amongst evangelicals appears to be a privatisation of religious identity.
Their realisation that political circumstances have changed beyond
their control has resulted in a shift in focus from saving Ulster
to saving souls. The border is now seen the less as a political threat
and more as an opportunity for evangelism. Whilst people's core religious
beliefs are often unchanged, their application to society has altered.
This paper presents work in progress, based on analysis of the Northern
Ireland Life and Times Survey 1991 and 1998 and recent interviews
with thirty evangelicals in Northern Ireland, to explore how religious
identities can reconstruct in relation to political developments.
Stefanie
Sinclair, Open University
The 'Headscarf Debate': The Marginalisation of Muslims in German
Parliamentary Debates
The conference
theme of 'Religion and Marginalisation' will be explored in relation
to a case study concerned with the role of Islam in the German state
school system and with different levels of access to political membership
of the German nation granted to the Muslim immigrant population. The
case study deals with the so-called 'headscarf debate', which was
initiated by the 'public outrage' generated when a teacher insisted
on wearing an Islamic headscarf in a school in the regional state
of Baden-Württemberg. The central piece of the analysis is a
debate held in the regional parliament of Baden-Württemberg in
July 1998.
The analysis
is particularly concerned with party-political perceptions of Islam
and with the access of Muslims to the civil service as teachers. I
will demonstrate that party-politicians appeared to be concerned with
educational and democratic issues, such as the integration of immigrants,
the equality of women and the restriction of the influence of extremist
political groups. However, beneath the veneer of democratic discourses
lay exclusive and discriminatory approaches and practices. We shall
see that the 'headscarf debate' reveals crucial aspects of party-political
representations of the place of Islam in German society and of notions
of German national identity. I shall demonstrate that the majority
of contributions to this particular parliamentary debate, irrespective
of the party-political affiliation of the various speakers, was based
on stereotypes and undifferentiated assumptions about Islam in Germany.
My analysis of party-political discourses employed within the 'headscarf
debate' will reveal that Germany was presented as host rather than
home to Muslims and that German identity was constructed in opposition
to Islam as 'the Other'. My intention is to challenge the construction
of Islam as an essentially un-German, undemocratic influence and extremist
threat to German culture. Instead, I will argue that it indeed reflects
an undemocratic approach to exclude German Muslims from positions
of social responsibility in German society, such as the civil service.
Noel
Heather, Royal Holloway,University of London
Critical Postliberalism and Marginalisation:Body
Language and the 'Jeffrey John Affair Irony'
This paper builds
on those given at the 2001 Study Day and the Plater College conference
2003, and is based on research carried out mainly in Scotland and
Southern England. It is also against a background of church adherence
in the four constituent parts of the UK and various areas of France.
In the light of my research and general experience, there seems to
be something of an irony inherent in the recent controversy related
to the idea that people who live in glasshouses shouldn't throw stones.
At the heart
of the theory of Critical Postliberalism (CP: see final note) is that
there are two main contrasting social cognitions apparent in UK church
life: the (doctrinally 'tighter' R1) strong commitment frame (SCF)
with its in-group focus, and the (doctrinally 'looser' R2), more individually-focused
social normalcy frame (SNF). My contention is that the R1/SCF lobby,
among the most accused of active marginalisation in the recent C of
E fracas, may in fact counter-intuitively be more inclusive when broader
issues are taken into account - eg the status of the elderly, and
of the 25% of worshippers in the UK who are single women.
As I have tried
to explicate previously, the R1/SCF-R2/SNF dialectic can be readily
identified though the observation of keywords. I shall begin by reviewing
some of the language used to affirm the two poles of the dialectic;
eg praying for the in-groupish isolated (R1) vs the out-groupish lonely
(R2), and the analogous contrast reflected in the vicar ending his
parish letter or weekly email with May God bless you (R1) vs May God
bless you and those you love (R2). Socially normative 'nodding and
winking' between vicar and congregation in R2/SNF is extremely common
('the beggar outside could work but chooses not to', and (incredibly)
'one of the wisemen is fairly black'). To the experienced eye, such
apparently very small (and, in the latter example, not so small )
touches can be seen to affirm and reflect one or other poles of the
dialectic, and provide a language-identity loop which tends to construct
worshippers' identity in terms of the dialectic.
A step further
into consideration of body language reveals similar contrasts in terms
of implicit social normalcy and its allied implicit tendencies towards
marginalisation along the lines of the dialectic. R2/SNF tends often
(in Critical Discourse Analysis terminology) to contradictorily construct
the worshipper into a rather ambivalent 'we're exploring who we are
- no, perhaps not, more who I am' mindset. (R1/SCF is very much about
'exploring who we are'.) The consequences of this contradictory construction
tend to be revealed in the body language commonly apparent in R2/SNF,
which can be strikingly different from that of R1/SCF. Perhaps most
obvious is the extent to which R2 people may exhibit 'bus stop body
language' (their not being constructed into having a mental model
of your observing their body language); the way during the after church
coffee a male R2 spouse may actively 'scoop up' his spouse you are
informally interviewing (contrast that one of the typical markers
of R1 is that you can talk to another person's spouse for a long time
- s/he is your 'spiritual sibling'); and the typical R2 church-door
body language of greeters which often tends subtly to convey the idea
that 'you are not quite all right' if you don't fit into a narrow
range of normative social groupings. (Compare the patronising, inferior
role allocation of the non-normative:'Glad to have you with us'.)
What can happen in terms of body language when an unaccompanied middle-aged
man approaches an R2/SNF church door at 10.28 on a Sunday morning
could sometimes only be adequately conveyed in terms reminiscent of
Gilbert and Sullivan.
R2 people may
also, in a well meaning though rather patronising manner attempt to
introduce a social actor to another because s/he is a person of similar
age/gender. (Compare the often implicit R2/SNF mantra: are you like
me socially or domestically?') Introducing X to Y in these terms may
be politically incorrect as unwelcome to the two social actors, as
well as being patronising. R1 people tend to do this less, as relationships
in R1 are based much more on a kind of implicit, group-focused ideological
siblinghood/colleaguehood in which issues of social normalcy in terms
of age, gender, marital status etc tend to be foregrounded much less.
In the light
of these and allied observations about the common real-world marginalisation
of social actors whom R2/SNF discourse appears commonly to perceive
as non-normative, much of the discussion of marginalisation in the
Jeffrey John affair has appeared to have something of an aroma of
irony. Put crudely, it seems ironic that the culture of R2/SNF may
appear rather too quick to accuse R1/SCF of a marginalising tendency
when it often appears far from free from this tendency itself - if
you happen to be elderly ('At the start of a new work-school week',
'the busy lives we all seem to have these days'; and 'Family Service
[creche facilities]' rather than 'Family Service [transport facilities]');
or you happen to be single (no '10.30 Singles Service [social facilities]').
(Reference will be made to the common hegemonic tendencies of the
EMLs (Early Middle Lifers) in ecclesial R2/SNF discourse.)
At a less polemical
level the Jeffrey John affair can be objectively explained via CP
in terms of R2's social normalcy frame. (A brief reference (with contemporary
diagram) will be made to the socio-theological, medieval/sixteenth-century
origins of this (a major focus of my doctoral thesis).) What Jeffrey
John represents has become generally normative in society and so R2
will inevitably create a positive slot for it in the social normalcy
frame - this along with the other (though also satirical) common,
recent SNF slot creation: 2+2 can=5 if the young are involved. (Real
world examples of the product of this currently major R2/SNF production
rule will be given, as outlined in my forthcoming Modern Believing
article.) On another facet of the situation, the 'JJ affair' fits
well within R2/SNF because the SNF tends to upgrade the domestic/individual-self,
unlike the group-focused R1/SCF (see definitions below).
Note: I have recently been invited to take the morning seminar on
Critical Postliberalism at the Institute for Systemic Theology, King's
College, London (October 7, 2003). (Critical Postliberalism (CP) combines
Lindbeck's (1984) postliberal notion of religion as a cultural-linguistic
system with Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CP perceives religion
as being not just an intrasystemically-coherent language-game, but
as being extrasystemic in terms of social cognition, as key terms
used can be linked to one or other poles of the R1/SCF-R2/SNF dialectic.)
SCF and SNF defined
below
The strong commitment
frame (SCF):
Frame name: strong commitment
Slots include
domestic-self messages: downgraded position
church-self messages: upgraded position
overt references to 'keenies': not permitted
keywords: walk (not 'journey' [except UK
Anglicans]), work, (prayer for the) isolated (not 'lonely')
The social normalcy
frame (SNF):
Frame name: strong commitment
Slots include
domestic-self messages: upgraded position
church-self messages: downgraded position
overt references to 'keenies': permitted
keywords: journey (not 'walk')
(prayer for the)
lonely (not [just] 'isolated')
use of 'special'/'especially'
with a social category: very common (almost entirely
excluded in R1)
talking to another
person's spouse: 'secular' caution required (less in R1 as s/he is
your 'spiritual
sibling')
(Extracts from
accounts of SCF and SNF in Evangelicals Now (Jan 03) and as forthcoming
in Modern Believing articles)
