Planning for urbanization in religious tourism destinations: insights from Shirdi,India

This paper examines the urbanization process in religious tourism destinations using the example of Shirdi in India. Shirdi, a town dedicated to worship of a twentieth-century Saint Sai Baba, attracts more than eight million visitors every year. The paper explains how religious tourism economy drives rapid urbanization including demographic change and land-use conversion owing to the infrastructure needs of visitors. It is found that planning mechanisms including the conventional master plan approach have been ineffective in adequately responding to issues such as the proliferation of unauthorized commercial establishments, hotels, lodging and boarding houses; strained infrastructure; and environmental pollution that characterize urbanization in religious tourism destinations.     

Being safe from what and safe for whom? A critical discussion of the conceptual metaphor of ‘safe space’

ABSTRACT

Safe space, used in educational settings as a metaphor, stresses the importance of the classroom being a learning environment characterised by respect and safety. Based on examples from Swedish and Norwegian classroom research, this article problematises and discusses the complexity in the discourse on safe space by asking the critical questions: Being safe from what? – and safe for whom? Related to the concept of safe space are questions about what possibly can make the classroom an unsafe place. In addition to various types of intimidation, harassment and attacks, discussions about certain issues and topics can, for various reasons, be perceived as threatening. The school is part of society, and in an increasingly polarised climate, controversial issues in contemporary society will often be perceived as controversial in classroom practice. In this sense, instead of giving students false promises of being safe in the Religious Education (RE) classroom, the concept ‘classroom of disagreement’ may be a useful metaphor, since it makes it explicitly clear that disagreements exist and are part of life.     

中世纪宗教文化观念的历史影响和当代意义

把西方中世纪信仰时代理解为与现代断裂的黑暗时代的传统观念并不符合历史的实际,需要重新加以审视。分析表明,中世纪基督教的文化观念在科学、法制、合理经济行为等方面,对后世欧洲的发展产生了重要的影响,而现实的文化处境也从另一个侧面反映了中世纪宗教文化观念的当代价值。     

宗教道德与现代社会

世俗伦理与宗教道德是两个各具独立特色的道德规范体系。随着宗教世俗化现象的出现,两者的关系也越来越引起人们的关注。本文试图通过对世俗伦理与宗教道德的相互关系的分析,来探讨宗教道德对现代社会伦理发展的影响及作用。     

托尔斯泰的诗性启示与评论界的接受思考

将托尔斯泰诗性启示这一问题,置于俄罗斯文化精神背景下、同时又置于文学创作自身把握理性玄思 与形象创造的辩证关系的规律下来考虑,不仅对揭示托尔斯泰诗性启示的语境、内涵、生成和表达等等环节有 意义,而且,对理解文学把握世界的多维空间,例如理性和非理性、哲理与启示等问题,具有理论价值。这涉及到文学艺术本身的规律性与启示所荷载的形而上内涵之间的矛盾问题。俄罗斯的思想、精神、道德和宗教,与托的艺术作品具有密切的关系;它们共同构建了一个不断生成艺术魅力的有机整体。     

Towards a New Paradigm of Religious Organizations

Abstract  In contemporary Japan, religion is an important issue. Various types of religions such as new religions, occultism, the new age movement, traditional religions etc., attract supporters and exerts a favorable influence on certain aspects of their lives. But, such circumstances are not restricted to Japan. All over the world today, religions have the power to sway national policy and are indispensable in influencing human consciousness and behavior.
Religion is alive and influential even in the secularized world. As such, a cross-cultural study of religions is increasingly needed. Furthermore, the typology of religious organizations provides a means with which to make a comparative study of religion throughout the world.
However, we cannot help but conclude that the theoretical framework developed so far cannot sufficiently deal with the subject in question. This is primarily due to its strong bias towards Christianity, which renders it invalid for analyzing religions in non-Christian regions. This paper will focus on the "cult". The term cult, unlike church-sect-denomination, seems to be applicable to any religious tradition and culture. It is not confined to a specific one such as the Christian tradition and culture.
It should be noted that the cult as previously treated is problematic, too, because it is not free from a bias towards Christianity, and has too negative a connotation for a scientific concept. In this paper, utilizing the merits of the concept of cult, I would like to elaborate a new paradigm of religious organizations. This should allow for a cross-cultural comparison between religious phenomena.     

邓小平与中华民族伟大复兴之路

本文考察了社会主义和现代化的关系,说明了中国改革开放的成就和邓小平理论对中华民族伟大复兴的历史作用。     

残存宗族组织对村民自治建设的负面影响

我国正在全国范围内推行村民自治制度,而各民族残存的宗族组织必然对这一制度造成千差万别的正负面影响,对农村的社会稳定和政权建设带来严重的危害。本文以永顺县羊峰乡青龙村土家族社区为例,探讨村民自治组织与残存的宗族组织在并行延续形式下的种种社会现实。希望能对残存宗族组织对村民自治制度所引发的负面效应作出全面的归纳和总结,从中找出解决抑制宗族组织负面影响的对策     

西部汉族村落中的信仰、仪式与文化——以青海省互助土族自治县总寨村为例

宗教场所、神祇与偶像、仪式都是宗教性信仰的基本特征,通过这些特征不仅可以了解其信仰的宗教属性和特点,而且可以揭示其社会文化内涵,以及信众的民族性格。     

Religion in the everyday lives of second‐generation Jains in Britain and the USA: resources offered by a dharma‐based South Asian religion for the construction of religious biographies,and negotiating risk and uncertainty in late modern societies

While the growth of spiritualties is associated with post‐traditional societies and the ability of individuals to engage in reflexive construction of religious biographies in late modernity, these arguments ignore various dimensions of reflexivity and processes of re‐traditionalization. In this article I explore linkages and affinity between social discourses in late modernity and a religion, with a distinctive ontology, originating in South Asia. Drawing on qualitative data, I examine processes involved in the construction of a religious self among second‐generation Jains in Britain and the USA. Living in late modern societies, young Jains have established a reflexive habitus. Such reflexivity has affinity with a neo‐orthodox tendency in Jainism that rejects the authority of ascetics and rituals while elevating one's own knowledge, discipline and insights in the construction of a Jain biography. I find that neo‐orthodox Jainism provides resources for young Jains to constantly reflect on and actively choose how to be a Jain; to enact cataphatic reflexivity in the construction of a Jain self. For some second‐generation Jains, the Jain tradition also provides resources to enact a non‐instrumental, apophatic reflexivity; a calm equanimous state that enables them to create ontological security in the face of risks and uncertainty in late modernity.