Who is ‘Us’: Our Culture, our Values, our Heritage
and the Reconfiguration of Religion
Workshop at the Centre for Advanced Studies“Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities”, Leipzig University,in collaboration with the “Nonreligion in a Complex Future” Project, University of Ottawa
9–10 March 2023
Convenors: Lori Beaman (University of Ottawa), Christoph Kleine (Leipzig University),
and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig University)

Building on previous discussions of culturalization by the Multiple Secularities research group, thisworkshop focuses on the transubstantiation of religion to culture in countries characterized by anhistorical Christian majority (in some cases a consequence of colonialism) and a contemporary decline
in religious affiliation. These countries are in the midst of rapid social change in relation to their religious
makeup: the number of people who self identify as ‘nonreligious’ is rapidly increasing. This disaffiliation,
which expresses itself in multiple ways, including atheism, agnosticism, humanism, and indifference, isprompting a re-grouping of Christianity in the form of what some have described as culturalization. In
this process a symbol or a practice which might traditionally been understood to be religious is now
reconstituted as ‘our culture and heritage’. The most visible place in which these debates take place isin law, often when nonreligious people, usually atheists, challenge the symbol or practice under humanrights protections. But the reconstitution of practices and symbols takes place in everyday life as well,crafting discursive frameworks that shape the understanding of who belongs to the ‘us’ whose culture
and heritage is to be preserved. In this workshop we are not so much concerned with ‘heritage sites’,
but with practices and symbols one encounters in the course of day-to-day life: symbols such as crosses
and crucifixes in social institutions, prayers in public spaces and even extended claims to culture which
are compatible with majoritarian Christianity (eating pork as part of who ‘we’ are, for example). Finally,
the rise of the culture and heritage narrative coincides with, in some cases, a reconstituted nationalism.
It plays a central role in populist movements which link the ideas of traditional culture – often associatedwith religious symbols – being under threat with a turn against “foreign” influences, may it be Islam orgroups promoting sexual liberties.
If we take secularity to be a concern with the social construction of boundaries then the religion to
culture reconfiguration falls squarely within the research purview of the core aim of the Multiple
Secularities programme. Of particular interest is the shape of power in these processes of boundary
construction, and the impact of the global circulation of ideas and bodies. Thus while the decline inChristianity is a major driver in this turn to culture, we see reference to the ‘religious other’, especiallyMuslims, in public debates about ‘our culture and heritage’ as well as narratives of an ‘us’ under threat.

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Workshop Programme“Who is ‘Us’: Our Culture, our Values, our Heritage and the Reconfiguration of Religion”
Leipzig University, 9–10 March 2023

Schedule
Thursday, 09 March 2023
9:00–12:00

Graduate Student Session
A
Anna Ohrt“Friendship and social Integration: We-relationships from the perspective of a sociology ofknowledge”
Lauren Strumos“Framing Indigenous Practices as ‘Culture’ in Canadian Law: Limitations and Possibilities”
B
Katrin Köster
“From Religious Reform to the Revival of Arab Culture Early Alawite Cultural Journals as aCatalysator for Arab Nationalism”
Karina Khasnulina & Yee Lak Elliot Lee“Narrating China’s Past Socialist Industrialization: Secular Formation of Modern NationalHeritage”

12:00–13:00

Lunch

13:00–15:00

Session 2
Lori Beaman“The ‘Us’ and Two Nations”
Teemu Taira“’Culturalization’ in Contemporary Finland”

15:00–15:15

Coffee Break

15:15–17:15

Session 3
Lene Kühle“Producing culturalised religion through strong welfare institutions”
Avi Astor“Crèche controversies: Making sense of the proliferation of Nativity and counter-Nativity
displays at US state capitols”

19:00

Joint Dinner

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Workshop Programme“Who is ‘Us’: Our Culture, our Values, our Heritage and the Reconfiguration of Religion”
Leipzig University, 9–10 March 2023

Friday, 10 March 2023
09:00–11:45

Session 4
Julia Martinez-Arino & Mar Griera
TBA
Nur Yasemin Ural
“We and Them After Charlie Hebdo”
Damon Mayrl“Culturalized Religion and the Municipal Prism: Place, Administration, and 'Tradition' inAmerican Law”

11:45–13:00

Lunch

13:00–14:30

Thinking about the Us Together

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