Religious Super-diversity and Peacebuilding across Asia and its Diasporas
Edited by
Alessandro Saggioro [+–]
Sapienza University, Rome
Alessandro Saggioro is Full Professor in History of Religions and Director of the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Arts, Performing Arts of Sapienza University. Faculty member since 2007, he is leading or supervising research and teaching projects related to religious pluralism, mediation, peaceful coexistence. Director of the PhD Course in History and Cultures of Europe of Sapienza University and delegate for this University in the Italian network of Universities for Peace (https://www.runipace.org/), he is also editor-in-chief of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni and of the related book series Quaderni di SMSR. Books recently edited: with C. Russo: Roma città plurale. Le religioni, il territorio, le ricerche, Chi siamo – Storia delle religioni 48, Bulzoni, Rome, 2018; Definire il pluralismo religioso, Morcelliana, Brescia, 2020. His interests and publications include teaching, methodology and Historiography of the History of Religions, religious conflict and coexistence, religions of Ancient Mediterranean, religions, law and politics, identity, mythology and peace studies.
Carmelo Russo [+–]
Sapienza University, Rome
Carmelo Russo is Assistant Professor at University of Naples Federico II. He is Marie Curie Global researcher with a project on religious superdiversity. He has conducted fieldwork in Italy and Tunisia focusing on the migration process, religious dynamics, religious and spiritual minorities. He is the author of numerous journal articles and volume chapters. His monograph Nostra Signora del limite (Our Lady of the Boundaries), concerning the Marian worship in Tunisia, was published in September 2020.
The book explores two central themes: superdiversity, particularly within religious contexts, and the practice of peacebuilding. Contributors examine how these themes intersect, combining theoretical discussions with real-world case studies. The introduction lays out the book’s conceptual framework and structure, featuring an opening chapter by Dionigi Albera and Maria Chiara Giorda, followed by eight chapters divided into two sections: one focusing on religious superdiversity in Asia and its implications for peacebuilding, and the other exploring case studies of the Asian diaspora in Italy, using Rome as a focal point.
Steven Vertovec’s seminal 2007 article introduced the concept of superdiversity, highlighting its transformative implications for immigration. Despite initial acclaim, superdiversity has faced criticism from scholars questioning its novelty and practical utility. Critiques include its ambiguous nature, challenges in quantifying complexity, and discrepancies in global migration patterns. However, the term has expanded across disciplinary boundaries and geographical contexts. Religion, once peripheral to discussions of superdiversity, has gained prominence and religious pluralism has become a key aspect of many researches offering insights into contemporary society’s complexity. Throughout history, cultural relations have been marked by collisions and reshaping, accelerated by global migration and interconnectedness. Pluralism, while enriching society, may also engender conflicts, highlighting the need for comprehensive understanding and promotion of sustainable citizenship. This entails embracing diversity, fostering inclusion, and promoting mutual respect and equal participation for all members of society.
The book takes a deep dive into the intricate relationship between superdiversity and peacebuilding, recognizing the complex interplay between these two phenomena. It employs empirical analyses spanning diverse geographical areas such as Syria, Indonesia, Nepal, Vietnam, and Asian diasporas in Italy. Through the lens of various religious contexts including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholic Christianity, as well as “Traditional” and “Indigenous” religions, the authors explore how historical and anthropological narratives shape conflicts and their non violent transformation.
In sum, the book offers a thorough examination of superdiversity, peacebuilding, and dialogue, providing valuable insights into the multifaceted nature of contemporary society and the complexities involved in fostering peace amidst diversity.
Series: Religions and Peace Studies
Table of Contents
Introduction
Sapienza University, Rome
Alessandro Saggioro is Full Professor in History of Religions and Director of the Department of History, Anthropology, Religions, Arts, Performing Arts of Sapienza University. Faculty member since 2007, he is leading or supervising research and teaching projects related to religious pluralism, mediation, peaceful coexistence. Director of the PhD Course in History and Cultures of Europe of Sapienza University and delegate for this University in the Italian network of Universities for Peace (https://www.runipace.org/), he is also editor-in-chief of Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni and of the related book series Quaderni di SMSR. Books recently edited: with C. Russo: Roma città plurale. Le religioni, il territorio, le ricerche, Chi siamo – Storia delle religioni 48, Bulzoni, Rome, 2018; Definire il pluralismo religioso, Morcelliana, Brescia, 2020. His interests and publications include teaching, methodology and Historiography of the History of Religions, religious conflict and coexistence, religions of Ancient Mediterranean, religions, law and politics, identity, mythology and peace studies.
Sapienza University, Rome
Carmelo Russo is Assistant Professor at University of Naples Federico II. He is Marie Curie Global researcher with a project on religious superdiversity. He has conducted fieldwork in Italy and Tunisia focusing on the migration process, religious dynamics, religious and spiritual minorities. He is the author of numerous journal articles and volume chapters. His monograph Nostra Signora del limite (Our Lady of the Boundaries), concerning the Marian worship in Tunisia, was published in September 2020.
Chapter 1
Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative, Aix-en-Provence
Dionigi Albera (Ph. D. Anthropology, University Aix-Marseille, 1995) is Research Director at the CNRS (Institut d’Ethnologie Méditerranéenne, Européenne et Comparative, Aix-en-Provence). His main topics of research are pilgrimage, ritual, interfaith practices, kinship, domestic organization, migration, museography, Alps, Mediterranean. His recent publications on religion include Sharing sacred spaces in the Mediterranean. Christians, Muslims and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, edited with Maria Couroucli, Indiana University Press, 2012; Dieu, une enquête. Judaïsme, christianisme, islam: ce qui les distingue, ce qui les rapproche, edited with Katell Berthelot, Paris, Flammarion, 2013; International Perspectives on Pilgrimage Studies: Itineraries, Gaps and Obstacles, edited with John Eade, London/New York, Routledge, 2015; New Pathways in Pilgrimage Studies, edited with John Eade, London/New York, Routledge, 2017.
University of Roma Tre
Maria Chiara Giorda (Ph.D. Paris, EPHE 2007) is Associate Professor of History of Religions at the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Roma Tre. She is coordinator of the international SHARP Lab Project: her research activity focuses on the following topics: history of religions, geography of religions, religion and urban spaces, history of monasticism. Her most recent publications include the co-curatorship of the volume Geography of Encounters: The Making and Unmaking Spaces (Palgrave 2021) with Marian Burchardt and Luoghi di culto della Chiesa ortodossa romena in Italia: dinamiche di insediamento, Religioni e Società (2022) with Ioan Cozma.
This chapter proposes an analytical grid of the concept of “diversity” in religious dynamics. After exploring the use of the concept of “super-diversity” in religious field, we discuss the term “new religious pluralism” and we propose a new typology based on three key words: diversity, plurality, and pluralism. To capture the dynamics employed in the contemporary religious field, we mobilize the prefix “hyper” to stress the complex and multi-layered religious diversity. From a historical, anthropological, and sociological perspective, this tripartite typology sheds light on the different levels and scales of diversity, focusing on individual and collective, inter- and intra-religious relationships.
Part 1. Asian Case Studies
University of Naples “L’Orientale”
Viviana Schiavo graduated in International Relations (Inter-Mediterranean curriculum) at Ca’ Foscari University. She subsequently obtained a license from the Pontifical Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies (PISAI). More broadly, her academic training and her professional and research experiences have been mainly dedicated to the themes of intercultural and interreligious dialogue, focusing particularly on Islamic theology. Since 2021, she is a PhD candidate at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” with a research project on Nonviolence in Islam.
By analysing the non-violent theology of the Syrian thinker Jawdat Said, the chapter aims to explore the relationship between religious diversity and peacebuilding in the Islamic context. Indeed, Said’s reflections were partially affected by the multiple religious identities he met in his life. Above all, the importance of diversity is a pillar of his non-violent thought.
Sapienza University, Rome
Davide Torri is Associate Professor of Himalayan Religions at the Department of History Anthropology Religions and Performing Arts, Sapienza University of Rome. He completed his PhD at University of Napoli “L’Orientale” in 2009, and he has been teaching and researching at the Universities of Chester (UK), Heidelberg and Bochum (Germany). Vice-President of ISARS (International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism), he has been carrying out research mainly in Nepal and the Himalayas, with a focus on indigenous religions.
This chapter takes into account the topic of religious pluralism and religious diversity in modern and contemporary Nepal. From a religious perspective, the modern and contemporary history of Nepal can be characterized by two diverse, and opposite, tendencies: a process towards centralization (1768-1991) followed by a process towards differentiation (1991-ongoing).
University of Milan-Bicocca
Roberto Rizzo is currently a postdoctoral researcher in Anthropology at the University of Milan – Bicocca, Italy. He has been an Ashoka fellow at the Khyentse Foundation and a field grant recipient by the École Française D’extrême-Orient. His research focuses predominantly on Buddhist revivalism in Indonesia and inter-religious dynamics in Java and Western Thailand.
The Indonesian religious landscape has been long identified as an instance of super-diversity “from within”. The chapter investigates how recent social-economic patterns and religious revivals have further complexified this picture. It follows the reformulation of a Javanese ancestorial ritual as a platform for religious coexistence, in a super-diversifying countryside.
ShanghaiTech University
Yuqing Du is an assistant professor in Institution of Humanities, ShanghaiTech
University. She received a doctoral degree in anthropology from SOAS, University of
London. From 2020 to 2022, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Sun Yat-Sen
University. Her research interests include anthropology of Christianity, Vietnamese
Catholicism and gender.
University. She received a doctoral degree in anthropology from SOAS, University of
London. From 2020 to 2022, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow at Sun Yat-Sen
University. Her research interests include anthropology of Christianity, Vietnamese
Catholicism and gender.
Based on 12 months of fieldwork in a northern Catholic community, a resettled community of 1954 bắc di cư, this chapter explicates the manner in which complex church/state histories and religious-political crisis were reconstructed in local historical narratives, and how these developments shaped the future aspirations of local parishioners and forms of peaceful coexistence in Vietnam.
Part 2. Asian Diasporas in Italy
University of Catania
Giovanni Cordova is a social anthropologist whose main research interests span from religions and rituals (with special reference to Islam and Christianity) to migrations, with an areal expertise on North Africa and, more recently, South Asia. He has carried fieldwork in Tunisia and Italy. He is currently Post-Doc Fellowship in Ethno-Anthropological Disciplines at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Catania. In relation to this research project he is studying the religious and ritual realm among the Sri Lankan communities living in Sicily, exploring the co-existence between universal religious values, local forms of religiosity and migrants’ religious experiences.
In this contribution, I examine from an ethnographic perspective the concept of super-diversity in relation to daily interactions between Sri Lankan Catholic and Buddhist communities in the city of Messina (Southern Italy). How does migration affect cultural representations and performances of identity and difference? And how does it lead to the re-shaping of categories of religious and ethnic belonging?
Fulda University of Applied Sciences
Andrea Priori, postdoctoral researcher at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, is an anthropologist concerned with migrations and im-mobilities with a focus on Bangladesh. His main research interests include migrants’ political self-organization, the intersection of im-mobility, politics and ir-religiosity, and the construction of migrant masculinities, and. He published the monograph on Bangladeshi migrations Romer probashira (2012), various book chapters and peer-reviewed articles, and co-edited special issues for the journals New Diversities, Migration Letters, and Religion and Society.
This chapter examines the different expressions of religious activism among young Italian-Bangladeshis to shed light on the relationship between public sphere, Islam, and sites of modernity in migratory contexts. The analysis highlights how Islam can be appropriated in different positionalities to construct a public discourse which assumes theatrical and topological forms.
Sapienza University, Rome
Valeria Giampietri is a Ph.D. candidate in Civilizations of Asia and Africa at Sapienza University of Rome, with a focus on language, literature and cultures of the Indian subcontinent. She has published essays and scientific articles in journals and collective volumes, reviews, and she has participated in conferences. Her research interests are ritual practices, gender, migration and transcultural studies.
Sapienza University, Rome
Randa Khalil is a PhD candidate in History and Cultures of Europe at Sapienza University of Rome. Her research project is about Indian Contemporary Theatre in Europe.
Sapienza University, Rome
Ludovica Tozzi is a Ph.D. candidate in Civilizations of Asia and Africa at Sapienza University of Rome. Her academic career is focused on Hindi and Bengali languages and literatures, societies and cultures of the Indian Subcontinent. Her research interests are centred on literature, gender studies and narratives, history of religions and performance studies.
The chapter analyzes the way one of the main Hindu religious festivals, the Durgā Pūjā, has been celebrated by the Hindu Bangladeshi and Indian diasporic community in Rome, specifically in the neighborhood of Tor Pignattara, during the pandemic in October 2020. The focus of the present research is the process of adaptation of Durgā Pūjā during the pandemic along with the essential role of the internet and technologies that allowed worshippers to overcome Covid-19 restrictions and geographical borders for the people of Tor Pignattara district.
9. Religious ‘superconflict’: Durgā Pūjā and a Muslim Funeral in a Plural District of Rome, Italy [+–]
Sapienza University, Rome
Carmelo Russo is Assistant Professor at University of Naples Federico II. He is Marie Curie Global researcher with a project on religious superdiversity. He has conducted fieldwork in Italy and Tunisia focusing on the migration process, religious dynamics, religious and spiritual minorities. He is the author of numerous journal articles and volume chapters. His monograph Nostra Signora del limite (Our Lady of the Boundaries), concerning the Marian worship in Tunisia, was published in September 2020.
Chapter 9 authored by Carmelo Russo, focuses on Tor Pignattara and the Durgā festival. Russo investigates the ambiguities and conflicts that latently exist in relational and political practices of and groups. He specifically examines the interactions during two distinct events, the Hindu festival (October 2019, from 4 to 8) and a Muslim funeral (October 2017, 30).
ISBN-13 (Hardback)
9781800506442
Price (Hardback)
£75.00 / $100.00
ISBN-13 (Paperback)
9781800506459
Price (Paperback)
£24.95 / $32.00
ISBN (eBook)
9781800506466
Price (eBook)
Individual
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
£24.95 / $32.00
Institutional
£75.00 / $100.00
Publication
01/10/2025
Pages
224
Size
234 x 156mm
Readership
scholars
Illustration
figures
