AI Summary & Key Takeaways
AI InsightThis study problematizes the universalist claims of the modern concept of religion and demonstrates how this category has operated as a transformative tool within colonial modernity.
📌 3 Key Takeaways
Abstract
Decolonial scholarship has shown that colonialism is not merely a form of military and political domination, but also an epistemic structure sustained through concepts and regimes of knowledge production. Debates on coloniality demonstrate that the West legitimized its authority to classify and transform non-Western societies by presenting concepts rooted in its own historical experience as universal categories. In this context, this study examines the modern and Western notion of religion as a colonial category of knowledge that operates in conjunction with the ideals of secularization and rationalization. Before colonial modernity, religion operated within specific European ritual and theological contexts rather than as a universal category. From the Reformation and Enlightenment onward, it was increasingly reconfigured as a discrete sphere of belief set apart from political, legal, scientific, and educational domains. With this differentiation, the secular sphere was transferred to the domain of rationality, and religion and secularity were constructed within the same historical process. In the nineteenth century, with the emergence of the academic study of religion, the concept of religion was universalized as a culture-neutral analytical category structured around theocentric assumptions. Societies were positioned within an evolutionary hierarchy according to the degree of abstraction in their conceptions of the divine. This process also entailed the search for equivalents of the concept of religion in non-Western societies. While local traditions were reduced to theology, they were simultaneously removed from their public roles. The study examines how this conceptual framework generated a structural tension in the case of Confucianism. As a normative tradition integrating politics, ethics, and cosmology without a strict sacred–secular divide, Confucianism did not fit easily into the modern category of religion. It was either reinterpreted as a religion due to its ritual practices or reduced to philosophy on the grounds that it lacked a theocentric structure. Within the discourse of modernization, the view that Confucianism should be excluded from politics, law, and education gained influence. While figures such as Kang Youwei sought to preserve it by formulating it as a “state religion,” representatives of the New Culture Movement attempted to diminish its normative authority by redefining it as philosophy. Despite their differences, both approaches operated within the boundaries of secular epistemology. This reclassification weakened Confucianism’s public and institutional functions, and the abolition of the imperial examination system in 1905 marked the institutional dismantling of its normative role within the state. The repositioning of Confucianism within the categories of religion or philosophy was directly linked to the modern concept of religion functioning as a universal measure. The authority to define what counts as “religion” simultaneously delineates the boundaries of legitimate knowledge. In this sense, the concept of religion functioned not as a neutral descriptive category but as a colonial epistemic instrument that reclassified non-Western societies by detaching them from their own normative totalities. This study problematizes the universalist claims of the modern concept of religion and demonstrates how this category has operated as a transformative tool within colonial modernity.
Özet
Dekolonyal çalışmalar, kolonyalizmin yalnızca askerî ve siyasal bir tahakküm biçimi olmadığını, bilgi üretim araçları üzerinden Batı dışı toplumlarda varlığını sürdürdüğünü ortaya koymuştur. Batı’nın kendi tarihsel tecrübesinin ürünü olan kavramların Batı dışı toplumlara dayatılması bu epistemik tahakkümün bir başka veçhesini teşkil etmektedir. Bu çalışmada Avrupa’nın tarihsel tecrübesi içerisinde şekillenen din kavramı ele alınmakta ve dekolonyal bir perspektifle incelenmektedir. 19. yüzyıldan itibaren analitik ve kültür-nötr bir kategori olarak sunulan din kavramının, Batı dışı toplumlara uygulanırken örtük bir sekülerizm anlayışını da beraberinde getirdiği, böylece yerel geleneklerin kamusal rollerini yeniden düzenleyerek epistemik bir kolonyalite ürettiği ileri sürülmektedir. Bu iddia, Konfüçyanizm’in din ile felsefe arasında sıkıştırılarak kamusal rolünden tasfiye edilmesi ve seküler alanın inşası süreci üzerinden somutlaştırılmaktadır. Makalede, sosyal bilimlerde kullanılan din kavramının bilimsel ve nesnel bir kategori olmadığı, seküler düşüncenin inşasına zemin hazırlayan kolonyal bir epistemoloji ürettiği savunulmaktadır. Konfüçyanizm örneği üzerinden modern bilginin kavramsal araçlarının, Batı dışı toplumlarda nasıl dönüştürücü sonuçlar ürettiğini görünür kılınmaktadır.