Author : Emma Bell
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 22,99 MB
Release : 2020-07-31
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1788973305
This book brings together analyses from across the social sciences to develop an interdisciplinary approach to understanding spiritualities and neoliberalism. It traces the lived experience of social actors as they engage with new and alternative spiritualities in neoliberal contexts. The purpose of the book is to provide specific insights into how neo-liberalism is resisted, contested or reproduced through a transformative ethic of spiritual self-realization.
Author : James Dennis LoRusso
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 19,68 MB
Release : 2017-02-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1350006262
By the early twenty-first century, Americans had embraced a holistic vision of work, that one's job should be imbued with meaning and purpose, that business should serve not only stockholders but also the common good, and that, for many, should attend to the “spiritual” health of individuals and society alike. While many voices celebrate efforts to introduce “spirituality in the workplace” as a recent innovation that holds the potential to positively transform business and the American workplace, James Dennis LoRusso argues that workplace spirituality is in fact more closely aligned with neoliberal ideologies that serve the interests of private wealth and undermine the power of working people. LoRusso traces how this new moral language of business emerged as part of the larger shift away from the post-New Deal welfare state towards today's global market-oriented social order. Building on other studies that emphasize the link between American religious conservatism and the rise of global capitalism, LoRusso shows how progressive “spirituality” remains a vital part of this story as well. Drawing on cultural history as well as case studies from New York City and San Francisco of businesses and leading advocates of workplace spirituality, this book argues that religion reveals much about work, corporate culture, and business in contemporary America.
Author : Dick Houtman
Publisher : Columbia University Press
Page : 182 pages
File Size : 33,76 MB
Release : 2024-10-15
Category : Religion
ISBN : 0231561377
Around 20 percent of Americans fall into the category of “spiritual but not religious.” Yoga has become a ubiquitous pastime for middle-class Westerners. Mindfulness is increasingly incorporated into school curricula, sports programs, and even corporate culture. Hollywood icons and Silicon Valley trendsetters tout the benefits of a “spiritual” life. These developments reflect a widespread turn away from “religion” toward “spirituality.” Yet the nature of this spiritual turn is still poorly understood, and its consequences sorely underappreciated. The Shape of Spirituality brings together leading sociologists to challenge common notions that spirituality is individualistic, privatized, and apolitical—and to make the definitive case for its social and political significance. Contributors examine the sweeping influence of spirituality on a variety of realms, including health care and therapeutic practice, popular culture, civic engagement, public protest, conspiracy culture, and progressive politics. Leveraging cutting-edge quantitative and qualitative data, this authoritative book makes clear that, far from being marginal and inconsequential, spirituality holds profound public importance today.
Author : Brad Stoddard
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 23,16 MB
Release : 2021-02-17
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1469663090
The overall rate of incarceration in the United States has been on the rise since 1970s, skyrocketing during Ronald Reagan's presidency, and recently reaching unprecedented highs. Looking for innovative solutions to the crises produced by gigantic prison populations, Florida's Department of Corrections claims to have found a partial remedy in the form of faith and character-based correctional institutions (FCBIs). While claiming to be open to all religious traditions, FCBIs are almost always run by Protestants situated within the politics of the Christian right. The religious programming is typically run by the incarcerated along with volunteers from outside the prison. Stoddard takes the reader deep inside FCBIs, analyzing the subtle meanings and difficult choices with which the incarcerated, prison administrators, staff, and chaplains grapple every day. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research and historical analysis, Brad Stoddard argues that FCBIs build on and demonstrate the compatibility of conservative Christian politics and neoliberal economics. Even without authoritative data on whether FCBIs are assisting rehabilitation and reducing recidivism rates, similar programs are appearing across the nation—only Iowa has declared them illegal under non-establishment-of-religion statutes. Exposing the intricate connections among incarceration, neoliberal economics, and religious freedom, Stoddard makes a timely contribution to debates about religion's role in American society.
Author : Dr Tuomas Martikainen
Publisher : Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 25,75 MB
Release : 2013-02-28
Category : Religion
ISBN : 140947335X
This book, together with a complementary volume 'Religion in Consumer Society', focuses on religion, neoliberalism and consumer society; offering an overview of an emerging field of research in the study of contemporary religion. Claiming that we are entering a new phase of state-religion relations, the editors examine how this is historically anchored in modernity but affected by neoliberalization and globalization of society and social life. Seemingly distant developments, such as marketization and commoditization of religion as well as legalization and securitization of social conflicts, are transforming historical expressions of 'religion' and 'religiosity' yet these changes are seldom if ever understood as forming a coherent, structured and systemic ensemble. 'Religion in the Neoliberal Age' includes an extensive introduction framing the research area, and linking it to existing scholarship, before looking at four key issues: 1. How changes in state structures have empowered new modes of religious activity in welfare production and the delivery of a range of state services; 2. How are religion-state relations transforming under the pressures of globalization and neoliberalism; 3. How historical churches and their administrations are undergoing change due to structural changes in society, and what new forms of religious body are emerging; 4. How have law and security become new areas for solving religious conflicts. Outlining changes in both the political-institutional and cultural spheres, the contributors offer an international overview of developments in different countries and state of the art representation of religion in the new global political economy.
Author : Yochanan Altman
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 317 pages
File Size : 18,15 MB
Release : 2022-01-19
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 3110711400
Workplace spirituality is an emerging field of study and practice and this book asks the questions: Where have we been in the last ten years as a field and where should we be headed in the next ten years? The editors asked these questions of thought leaders from around the globe, leaders who represent different sectors, faith traditions, worldviews and organizational functions. This volume represents the best of current thinking about the state of the field of workplace spirituality and of what the future holds. There are four themes: (1) management themes such as leadership, ethics, change management, and diversity; (2) workplace spirituality in sectors such as health and wellbeing, policing and creative industries, (3) key issues that are emerging, such as self-spirituality, mindfulness, storytelling and the importance of nature, and (4) cutting edge epistemologies and methodologies including indigenous studies, relational ontology, ethnography, and psychodynamics. These articles were chosen to provoke new thinking, new research, and new practice in the field of workplace spirituality, with the goal of helping the field mature in the next decade.
Author : François Gauthier
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 261 pages
File Size : 40,36 MB
Release : 2016-04-08
Category : Religion
ISBN : 1317067487
This book, together with a complementary volume 'Religion in Consumer Society', focuses on religion, neoliberalism and consumer society; offering an overview of an emerging field of research in the study of contemporary religion. Claiming that we are entering a new phase of state-religion relations, the editors examine how this is historically anchored in modernity but affected by neoliberalization and globalization of society and social life. Seemingly distant developments, such as marketization and commoditization of religion as well as legalization and securitization of social conflicts, are transforming historical expressions of 'religion' and 'religiosity' yet these changes are seldom if ever understood as forming a coherent, structured and systemic ensemble. 'Religion in the Neoliberal Age' includes an extensive introduction framing the research area, and linking it to existing scholarship, before looking at four key issues: 1. How changes in state structures have empowered new modes of religious activity in welfare production and the delivery of a range of state services; 2. How are religion-state relations transforming under the pressures of globalization and neoliberalism; 3. How historical churches and their administrations are undergoing change due to structural changes in society, and what new forms of religious body are emerging; 4. How have law and security become new areas for solving religious conflicts. Outlining changes in both the political-institutional and cultural spheres, the contributors offer an international overview of developments in different countries and state of the art representation of religion in the new global political economy.
Author : William E. Connolly
Publisher : Duke University Press
Page : 254 pages
File Size : 25,19 MB
Release : 2013-09-02
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0822377160
In The Fragility of Things, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity.
Author : Jason Hackworth
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 48,87 MB
Release : 2012
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0820343048
Faith Based explores how the Religious Right has supported neoliberalism in the United States, bringing a particular focus to welfare—an arena where conservative Protestant politics and neoliberal economic ideas come together most clearly. Through case studies of gospel rescue missions, Habitat for Humanity, and religious charities in post-Katrina New Orleans, Jason Hackworth describes both the theory and practice of faith-based welfare, revealing fundamental tensions between the religious and economic wings of the conservative movement. Hackworth begins by tracing the fusion of evangelical religious conservatism and promarket, antigovernment activism, which resulted in what he calls “religious neoliberalism.” He argues that neoliberalism—the ideological sanctification of private property, the individual, and antistatist politics—has rarely been popular enough on its own to promote wide change. Rather, neoliberals gain the most traction when they align their efforts with other discourses and ideas. The promotion of faith-based alternatives to welfare is a classic case of coalition building on the Right. Evangelicals get to provide social services in line with Biblical tenets, while opponents of big government chip away at the public safety net. Though religious neoliberalism is most closely associated with George W. Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the idea predates Bush and continues to hold sway in the Obama administration. Despite its success, however, Hackworth contends that religious neoliberalism remains an uneasy alliance—a fusion that has been tested and frayed by recent events.
Author : Edward Wray-Bliss
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 18,79 MB
Release : 2019-03-14
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 1351628178
The use of non-secular, religious, concepts in contemporary managerial discourse to legitimise leadership, organisation and work has been undertheorised. Concepts such as organisational soul, Spiritual Leadership, a wider deification (and demonisation) of leaders, and the mantra of individual freedom each evoke long religio-historical roots. The deployment of such terms in the present to (re)enrol people into the service of capitalism speaks both to high levels of religious belief worldwide and, more specifically, to a history of religion intersecting with public life in the US—a context pivotal in the development and dissemination of managerialism and wider neoliberal discourse. Organised around the concepts of Gods, Devils, Soul and the Individual this book will show how these concepts are being employed in current managerial, leadership and organisation discourses, critically examine the religio-historical and philosophical roots of such, and demonstrate how the religio-historical and religio-philosophical can be brought into the lexicon of critical organisational scholarship to provide a language to engage with the non-secular legitimation of capitalism and its institutions. In so doing, this book is a timely addition to organisation and management theory. It comes at a time that is witnessing a wider ‘theological turn’ in continental philosophy, mounting calls within organisation studies to ‘take religion seriously’, and an ongoing legitimation crisis of neoliberalism, one that is raising pivotal questions concerning how neoliberalism endures despite the deprivations and harms it occasions. This book is intended to be engaging and erudite, drawing upon a trans-disciplinary combination of popular and academic management texts, contemporary and classical philosophy, literature and religio-historical sources foundational in the construction of the Western subject.
