Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia

Modernity is surrounded by an almost magic aura that casts a spell over people all over the world. To connect with modernity, various ways and means are used, among them magic practices and religious ideas. Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia: Magic and Modernity deals with the magic in and of modernity and asks about its current significance for the dynamics of religion in Southeast Asia. Drawing on recent ethnographic research in this area, the contributors to this wide-ranging volume demonstrate how religious concepts contribute to meeting the challenges of modernity. Against this background, religion and modernity are no longer perceived as in contradiction; rather, it is argued that a revision of the western notion of religion is required to understand the complexity of 'multiple modernities' in a globalised world..Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia: Magic and Modernity is part of the series Global Asia, published by Amsterdam University Press (AUP) in close collaboration with the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS)

'The most significant contribution of this book is that it uses grounded empirical examples to engage with social theory, and in particular modernity, or should I say, modernities. It provides anthropologists, and more generally social scientists, with a generous tapestry from which to engage with ideas of religion, spirituality and the intellectual lineages of modernity.' - Jeremy Kingsley, Swinburne Law School, Melbourne, Australia, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology Volume 18, 2017 'The book does an excellent job in capturing the way in which religion is conceived of and expressed in a popular context. Together these papers really do show - as it says in the blurb - that 'religion and modernity are no longer perceived as contradictory' and that 'a revision of the western notion of religion is required to understand the complexity of 'multiple modernitites' in a globalised world'. This reviewer agrees wholeheartedly.' - Michael Hitchcock, ICEE, Goldsmiths, University of London, Aseasuk News no. 57 Spring 2015 "An excellent collection of ethnographically and historically well-informed and well-written essays. [...] for many the book will serve as a welcome introduction to non-Anglophone research into Southeast Asia" - Gregory Forth, Pacific Affairs

Volker Gottowik is postdoctoral researcher in the area studies network ‘Dynamics of Religion in Southeast Asia’ (DORISEA) at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Heidelberg.