(De)Globalization, the global imaginary, and religious narratives: a theoretical framework and the East Asia litmus test / Beilei Bai

Religions 16 (2025)

Local access dig.pdf[Bai-Globalization.pdf]

Abstract: Faced with the twin challenges of globalization and de‑globalization, do reli‑ gions exercise agency in these trends? In other words, do they give shape to them, or are they rather shaped by them? If the influence is reciprocal, how should the process be‑ hind this be described? This article sets itself two tasks. Firstly, it endeavors to develop a theoretical framework by which to conceptualize the question just posed. Secondly, it applies this framework to the case of China and, more cursorily, to the East Asian context in general. I start my analysis by approaching “globalization” as a shared vision of the world, referred to, in this article, as the “global imaginary”. The recent erosion of the lat‑ ter has led to “deglobalization”, a set of narratives that remain correlated to the globalist storyline they confront. Central to the topic is that fact that the crisis experienced by the global imaginary affects the interplay between its secular and religious dimensions. The secular imaginary had fostered a homogenous narrative that has caused both ontological and epistemological crises. The resurgence of religious discourse within the narratives of deglobalization is to be understood as part and parcel of competing interpretations of the global modernization process, since the latter obeys both secular and religious forces. Fo‑ cusing in the second part of this article on trends and representations proper to China in its regional context enables us to better assess how the globalization and deglobalization narratives intermingle in religious and secular dimensions in a way that reshapes each of them

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