Abstract
Despite important advances in the study of war and religion, the role of the secular remains under-analysed. This article develops a theory of secularity talk in civil wars, examining two instances where actors have made religion and sect salient. In comparing patterns of secularity talk among non-elites, found in oral history sources from the Syrian civil war and the Northern Irish Troubles, this article contributes to the recent peace turn in the religion-and-conflict literature. Greater attention to religion’s borderlands, to how actors distinguish religion from other arenas of human life (Wohlrab-Sahr and Burchardt 2012), can tell us more about what happens to the secular when people are under extreme pressure, including during war. This approach also sheds light on non-elite ambivalence towards elite mobilization of religion to fuel conflict, a common but as-yet under-theorized phenomenon.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 21 |
| Journal | Religions |
| Publication status | Accepted/In press - 12 Aug 2022 |
Keywords
- secular; conflict; sectarianism; religion; sectarianism; Syria; Northern Ireland