RT Article
T1 Religious renaissance in China today
JF Journal of current Chinese affairs
VO 40
IS 2
SP 17
OP 42
A1 Madsen, Richard
LA English
PB Sage Publishing
YR 2011
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1477220593
AB Since the beginning of the Reform Era in 1979, there has been a rapid growth and development of religious belief and practice in China. A substantial new scholarly literature has been generated in the attempt to document and understand this. This essay identifies the most important contributions to that literature and discusses areas of agreement and controversy across the literature. Along with new data, new paradigms have developed to frame research on Chinese religions. The paradigm derived from C. K. Yang's classic work in the 1960s came from structural functionalism, which served to unite research in the humanities and social sciences. However, structural functionalism has been abandoned by the new generation of scholars. In the humanities, the most popular paradigm derives from Michel Foucault, but there are also scholars who use neo-Durkheimian and neo-Weberian paradigms. In the social sciences, the dominant paradigms tend to focus on state-society relations. None of these paradigms fully captures the complexity of the transformations happening in China. We recommend greater dialogue between the humanities and social sciences in search of more adequate theoretical frameworks for understanding Chinese religions today. (JCCA/GIGA)
K1 Religion
K1 Religionspolitik
K1 Religionsgemeinschaft
K1 Staat
K1 Ursache
K1 Wissenschaftstheorie
K1 Sozialwissenschaften
K1 China