NETWORKING WORKSHOP
May 2, 2009
University of California, Santa Barbara
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PARTICIPANTS
JAN NEDERVEEN PIETERSE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SANTA BARBARA
Jan Nederveen Pieterse has been a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2001. He specializes in globalization, development studies and cultural studies. He has been a visiting professor at universities in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and Thailand. He is associate editor of various journals (including Futures, Globalizations, European Journal of Social Theory, Ethnicities, Third Text, Journal of Social Affairs ) and has written numerous books
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On religion and civil society, with a view to international NGO work, three points. First, history-to avoid the presentism of media, political journalism and policy a historical perspective matters. Second, culture-the heading is religion but the text is mostly culture, so an anthropological approach matters. Go local, differentiate, disaggregate, avoid blanket categories and lumping concepts. Third, reflexivity-let's problematize and examine our own positions and assumptions. Who is asking the question, for what reason? What is at stake for whom? What are the relationships in which questions are raised?
