The cultural turn in the sociology of religion in France

Sociology of Religion, Winter, 2004 by Jean-Paul Willaime

For a sociologist such as Touraine, the current return of religion does not signify simply the defensive mobilization of communities disrupted from outside, but "the rejection of the notion that reduced modernity to rationalization and thus deprived the individual of all forms of resistance in the face of a central power, whose means of action are no longer limited" (1992:249). (19) Touraine, in Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Egaux et differents (1997), masterfully poses the central problem of contemporary societies: that the articulation of democratic politics and the recognition of differences (cultural diversity in particular), must be differentiated just as much from communitarianism as from abstract universalism.

Changes in the study of religion go hand in hand with changes in laicite; both are confronted with an entirely new socio-religious situation. The questions that emerge are twofold: that of the social bond, the Durkheimian question par excellence, and that of how to live together in an increasingly pluralist society. Hence the centrality of identity--the identity of French society in the context of globalization and European integration, and identities within French society itself.

Nowadays, French sociologists adopt an approach to their subject that is both more constructivist and less reductionist, an approach that is particularly sensitive to the changing affiliations in religious life (Willaime 1999). The "decompartmentalization" of the sociology of religion is also discernible. Somewhat marginalized in the 1960s and 1970s, religion now attracts the interest of numerous researchers: sociologists, political scientists and anthropologists of all kinds have invaded the territory, their work overlapping with that of the specialists in religion. Sociologists seeking to develop a general theory of the future of Western societies incorporate religious change into their analyses (Touraine, Dubet, Wieviorka, etc.). The situation is, in fact, reminiscent of the period when the foundations of sociology were being laid.

More precisely, the sociology of religion in France is concerned with the question of identities in democratic societies. Some sociologists emphasize the constraining nature of identities, whether they be religious, cultural, gendered, or age-related. Others underline the fact that identities offer individuals a more secure sense of self, of social belonging and of participation. National identity is no longer able to invoke either commitment or participation. With this in mind, both general sociologists and the specialists in religion in France are looking again at identities, religious and other, as an important source of motivation and of structure for individuals in pluralist societies. Thus, the sociology of religion continues to analyze the social determinants of religious trends and activities, but takes increasingly careful account of the fact that religion is not reducible to something other than itself. This, I think, is the principal change in the sociology of religion in France today.