How pluralism becomes hierarchical? Debating pluralism in contemporary Poland

• Authors: Agnieszka Pasieka

Title variants

PL

Dlaczego pluralizm hierarchizuje? Dyskusja na temat pluralizmu we współczesnej Polsce

• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

This article discusses the multifaceted nature of religious pluralism. More specifically, it seeks to answer the question why, while advancing the claims of equality and diversity, the idea of pluralism reproduces inequalities and naturalizes hierarchies. In order to illuminate this problem, the article first presents a theoretical discussion and then refers it to the ethnographic evidence from a year-long fieldwork in a multireligious locality in southeast Poland. It analyzes the impact of the discourse on “multiculturalism” on minorities’ plights and it exposes the processes in which religion, reconfigured as “culture” or “tradition,” is used as a discriminatory tool. By combining an exploration of a concrete ethnographic setting with an investigation of the broader implications of locally observed phenomena, it demonstrates the importance of anthropological perspective in the study of pluralism, or rather: the importance of a thorough dialogue between theory and ethnography.

Keywords

EN

religious pluralism; anthropology ethnography; Poland

• Publisher: Instytut Slawistyki Polskiej Akademii Nauk
• Journal: Sprawy Narodowościowe
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 43
• Pages: 53-73

Contributors

author

Agnieszka Pasieka

• Instytut Slawistyki PAN, Warszawa