3. Anthropological Perspectives on the Normative and Institutional Recognition of Religion by the Law of the State

The negative effects of economic globalisation and the emergence of a host of post-Cold War political crises, accompanied by a drastic increase of global migration, have in many parts of the world, including the US, Canada, and Europe, spurred social movements lobbying for some or greater normative and institutional recognition of religion by the law of the state. Arguing that the resultant new religion-based legal pluralism must be theorised in the light of the increasing colonisation of the life-world by law (Habermas), I then discuss the different positions scholars have taken in the trans-disciplinary debate on “legal pluralism” since the late 1950s. In the course of this chapter, I seek to make three additional points: (1) once religious norms are accommodated in state law, they usually undergo a significant degree of transformation; (2) the term “law” should be reserved for state law only, not to obfuscate the hegemonic claim of the state and of the international community of nation states in the competition between different normativities; and (3) the common blackboxing of the category of “religion” by law-makers and scholars of “legal pluralism” alike has abetted the obscuration of the unequal treatment of religious communities in many countries.