The New Spiritualities, East and West

Colonial Legacies and the Global Spiritual Marketplace in Southeast Asia

Authors

  • Julia Day Howell Griffith University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v19i1.19

Keywords:

new spiritualities, globalization and religion

Abstract

Scholars who recognise an increasingly common distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘spirituality’ in Western popular usage have suggested that the new spiritualities, framed in contrast to ‘religion’, are largely confined to North Atlantic and Australasian societies. This paper, examining recent developments in the practice and framing of ‘religion’ in Indonesia, argues that comparable new spiritualities, emphasising subjective experience and individual autonomy and existing in tension with congregational religion, have emerged in this Asian country amongst people participating in the modern sector of the economy and the global spiritual marketplace. However the differing institutionalisation of Indonesia’s new spiritualities from those of Western and other Asian countries needs to be understood in the historical context of Muslim reactions to colonialism and give due attention to particular national legacies of colonial administration.

Author Biography

  • Julia Day Howell, Griffith University
    with movements of religious reform and New Religious Movements in Indonesia and the West. While her earlier work dealt with Indic religious traditions and mysticism derived from those traditions, her present projects focus on Sufism and Islam in cosmopolitan contexts. She is presently Senior Lecturer in Asian Studies and Researcher with the Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

References

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Published

2006-02-24

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Howell, J. D. (2006). The New Spiritualities, East and West: Colonial Legacies and the Global Spiritual Marketplace in Southeast Asia. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion, 19(1), 19-33. https://doi.org/10.1558/jasr.v19i1.19