Full Description
A major new contribution to comparative and multidisciplinary scholarship on the alignment of religion and violence in the contemporary world, with a special focus on South and Southeast Asia.
Religion and Conflict in South and Southeast Asia shows how this region is the site of recent and emerging democracies, a high degree of religious pluralism, the largest Muslim populations in the world, and several well-organized terrorist groups, making understanding of the dynamics of religious conflict and violence particularly urgent. By bringing scholars from religious studies, political science, sociology, anthropology and international relations into conversation with each other, this volume brings much needed attention to the role of religion in fostering violence in the region and addresses strategies for its containment or resolution. The dearth of other literature on the intersection of religion, politics and violence in contemporary South and Southeast Asia makes the timing of this book particularly relevant.
This book will of great interest to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Asian politics, security studies and conflict studies.
Contents
Preface 1. Introduction: Disrupting Violence: Religion and Conflict in South and Southeast Asia 2. From Bhindranwale to Bin Laden: A Search for Understanding Religious Violence 3. The Sword Against the Crescent: Religion and Violence in Muslim Southeast Asia 4. Buddhism, Violence, and the State in Burma (Myanmar) and Sri Lanka 5. The Roots of Religious Violence in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh 6. Religious Conflict and the Globalization of Knowledge in Indonesian History 7. Religious Violence Beyond Borders: Reframing South Asian Cases 8. The (Psychic) Roots of Religious Violence in South and Southeast Asia 9. Debating Strategies for Disrupting Violence: Lessons from South Asia 10. Violence and the Long Road to Reconciliation in Southern Thailand 11. Lévinas and the Question of Civilizational Amity after September 11. Notes on Contributors. About The National Bureau of Asian Research. About The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict. Index
