Religion After Globalization? Infrastructure, Planetarity, and the Fate of the Global

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Kirby, Benjamin:
Religion After Globalization? Infrastructure, Planetarity, and the Fate of the Global.
In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Bd. 93 (2025) Heft 3 . - S. 372-394.
ISSN 1477-4585
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfaf068

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Abstract

Confidence in globalization is unraveling under the combined pressures of geopolitical realignment, infrastructural fragmentation, and ecological upheaval. These developments, together with conceptual critiques of the globalization paradigm, call for renewed scrutiny of the global as an analytical category in the study of religion. This article introduces a three-phase heuristic framework to examine how researchers from the 1980s onward have theorized religion in a global frame, tracing key developments and recurring oversights. Building on this discussion, I propose two conceptual reorientations: an infrastructural approach that foregrounds religion’s socio-technical role in globalizing processes, and a planetary perspective that situates religion within broader socio-ecological entanglements. I argue that global frames remain valuable but demand critical engagement in light of shifting theoretical trajectories, as well as emerging dynamics of “deglobalization” and ecological disruption. In turn, I demonstrate that religion constitutes a vital site for rethinking the futures of the global and the planetary.