“Examine the social dimensions of religious revivalism and fundamentalism in the context of globalisation.” (2010)
Globalisation was expected to spread a secular, consumerist world culture. Instead it has coincided with a worldwide resurgence of faith. Revivalism (the renewal of religious fervour) and fundamentalism (a militant return to “fundamentals” with a programme for public life) are not relics of the past. They are shaped by global flows of capital, people, media and ideas. Their social dimensions can be examined one by one.
1. Cultural dimension: homogenisation and its backlash
- Benjamin R. Barber (Jihad vs. McWorld, 1995) described two opposed forces: “McWorld”, the uniform global consumer market, and “Jihad”, parochial and tribal backlash. Both, he argued, weaken democratic civic space.
- Roland Robertson‘s “glocalisation” is more nuanced. Global religions adapt locally, and local faiths go global: Pentecostalism in Africa, and yoga after the UN declared an International Day of Yoga in 2014.
2. Identity dimension
- Manuel Castells argues that the network society produces resistance identities among those it excludes. Religion offers a ready “trench” of certainty.
- Samuel P. Huntington predicted civilisational clashes along religious lines. Amartya Sen replies that such thinking reduces people’s plural identities to one and so helps create the conflicts it forecasts.
3. Gender and family
- Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby‘s Fundamentalism Project found that controlling women’s bodies, dress and mobility is central to fundamentalist boundary-making, because globalised media and labour markets unsettle patriarchy. The Taliban’s bar on girls’ secondary education after 2021 is an extreme case.
- In India, the Pew Research Center’s 2021 survey found that 67% of Indians considered it very important to stop women of their community from marrying outside their religion. Community boundaries are policed through women.
4. Class and economic dimension
- Market reforms have often shrunk state welfare and made work less secure. Religious bodies step in with schools, clinics and networks, gaining followers among the insecure.
- In north India, deras (sect-based spiritual centres) draw many Dalits and poor followers by offering dignity and services that caste society and the state deny them.
- Educated but unemployed youth are a recurring social base for militant movements.
5. Migration and diaspora
- Olivier Roy shows that second-generation migrants, cut off from their parents’ culture, may adopt a “deculturated”, purist religion.
- Benedict Anderson‘s “long-distance nationalism” describes sections of diasporas that fund and amplify religious-political movements back home.
6. Media, technology and violence
- Satellite television, social media and messaging apps let movements grow without hierarchy.
- Mark Juergensmeyer calls terrorist attacks “performance violence”, designed for a global audience.
7. Political dimension
- Gilles Kepel traced a global “re-Christianisation”, “re-Judaisation” and “re-Islamisation” from the mid-1970s. Religious nationalism now shapes elections from the United States to South Asia.
Assessment
These dimensions are not all negative. José Casanova shows public religion also sustains human rights, humanitarian networks and interfaith dialogue. Steve Bruce reminds us that much apparent religious revival is really ethnic or national identity expressed in religious terms.
Conclusion
Revivalism and fundamentalism are children of globalisation: they use its technologies and markets while resisting its values. Anthony Giddens captures the stakes as the contest between fundamentalism and cosmopolitan tolerance. Which prevails depends on inclusive development, secure identities and a democratic public sphere.