TY - JOUR

T1 - Multiple modernities, modern subjectivities and social order

T2 - Unity and difference in the rise of Islamic modernities

AU - Jung, Dietrich

AU - Sinclair, Kirstine

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - Taking its point of departure in the conceptual debate about modernities in the plural, this article presents a heuristic framework based on an interpretative approach to modernity. The article draws on theories of multiple modernities, successive modernities and poststructuralist approaches to modern subjectivity formation. In combining conceptual tools from these strands of social theory, we argue that the emergence of multiple modernities should be understood as a historical result of idiosyncratic social constructions combining global social imaginaries with religious and other cultural traditions. In the second part of the article we illustrate this argument with three short excursions into the history of Islamic reform in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this way we interpret the modern history of Muslim societies as based on cultural conflicts between different forms of social order and individual identities similar to those present in European history. Contrary to the European experience, however, religious traditions gradually assumed an important role in defining ‘authentic’ Muslim modernities, leading to a relatively hegemonic role of so-called Islamic modernities toward the end of the 20th century.

AB - Taking its point of departure in the conceptual debate about modernities in the plural, this article presents a heuristic framework based on an interpretative approach to modernity. The article draws on theories of multiple modernities, successive modernities and poststructuralist approaches to modern subjectivity formation. In combining conceptual tools from these strands of social theory, we argue that the emergence of multiple modernities should be understood as a historical result of idiosyncratic social constructions combining global social imaginaries with religious and other cultural traditions. In the second part of the article we illustrate this argument with three short excursions into the history of Islamic reform in the 19th and 20th centuries. In this way we interpret the modern history of Muslim societies as based on cultural conflicts between different forms of social order and individual identities similar to those present in European history. Contrary to the European experience, however, religious traditions gradually assumed an important role in defining ‘authentic’ Muslim modernities, leading to a relatively hegemonic role of so-called Islamic modernities toward the end of the 20th century.

KW - Islamic modernities

KW - Islamic reform

KW - modern subjectivity

KW - modernity

KW - multiple modernities

KW - social order

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84943618854&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/0725513615604418

DO - 10.1177/0725513615604418

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:84943618854

VL - 130

SP - 22

EP - 42

JO - Thesis Eleven

JF - Thesis Eleven

SN - 0725-5136

IS - 1

ER -