Mascha Schulz’s research while affiliated with Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology and other places

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Publications (3)


Figure 1. A self-designed wallpaper that decorates the room of atheist and cultural activist Shishir Baul in Sylhet and summarizes his secularist stance through the slogan 'I am not against religion-Religion is anti-me'. Source: The author.
Singing songs for a secular society? The elusive politics of cultural activism in contemporary Bangladesh
  • Article
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October 2024

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20 Reads

Modern Asian Studies

Mascha Schulz

In Bangladesh, many secularists pursue their political goals through cultural activism. While committed to achieving a secular, progressive, and non-communal society, they often refrain from explicitly articulating their politics due to the sensitivity of their goals. Instead, cultural performances allow them to instantiate and embody a secular ethos with transformative potential, expressed through distinct cultural genres that become recognized as secular aesthetics. While activists consider culture to be a morally superior and ‘purer’ way to promote their political aims than party politics, which they perceive as ‘dirty’ and corrupt, cultural traditions are hardly neutral ground from which to enact secular aspirations. This article explores the ethical struggles that emerge from this position to illuminate what it means to act politically while trying to avoid politics, and why people might choose comparatively elusive forms of political engagement despite their strong commitment to a cause. Attending to less tangible forms of politics encourages us to rethink the role of political messages and visibility in social movements by highlighting the significant role, as well as contradictory implications, of aesthetics, embodiment, and gestures in political action. Conversely, the elusive politics of cultural activism underlines the need to go beyond analysing national discourses to understand the contested nature of secularism in Bangladesh.

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Introduction: An Anthropology of Nonreligion?

July 2023

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168 Reads

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3 Citations

Religion and Society

This introduction engages with recent scholarship on what has been dubbed ‘lived’ forms of nonreligion. It aims to profile the anthropology of the secular and nonreligion, no longer treating it as a subdiscipline or ‘emerging trend’ but as a substantial contribution to general debates in anthropology. Drawing on the ethnographic contributions to this special issue, we explore how novel approaches to embodiment, materiality, moral sensibilities, conceptual distinctions, and everyday practices signal new pathways for an anthropology of nonreligion that can lead beyond hitherto dominant concerns with the political governance of religion(s). Critically engaging with the notion of ‘lived’ nonreligion, we highlight the potential of ethnographic approaches to provide a uniquely anthropological perspective on secularism, irreligion, atheism, skepticism, and related phenomena.


Who Counts as ‘None’?: Ambivalent, Embodied, and Situational Modes of Nonreligiosity in Contemporary South Asia

July 2023

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22 Reads

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2 Citations

Religion and Society

People in South Asia who neither believe in god(s) nor engage in religious practices nevertheless often self-identify as Muslims or Hindus rather than—or in addition to—identifying as atheists. The situational and contextual dynamics generating such positionings have implications for the conceptualization of nonreligion and secular lives. Based on ethnographic research in India and Bangladesh and focusing on two individuals, we attend to embodied and more ambivalent modes of nonreligiosity. This enables us to understand nonreligion as situated social practices and beyond what is typically captured with the term ‘religion’. Studying nonreligion also where it is not visible as articulated conviction or identity not only contributes to accounting for the diversity of nonreligious configurations but also offers significant complementary insights.

Citations (2)


... ought to be (Cottee, 2015). This also implies a flexible understanding of who counts as Muslim in-group and who does not, which goes beyond theological criteria (Fatima, 2011;Quack & Schulz, 2023). Many actively claim their space as post-Muslims, such as Hind: 'One time in Ramadan, I told someone Ramadan karim and he told me he can't tell me the same because I don't believe in it. ...

Reference:

Normalising Nonreligion - Everyday Activism in Morocco and the Moroccan Diaspora
Who Counts as ‘None’?: Ambivalent, Embodied, and Situational Modes of Nonreligiosity in Contemporary South Asia

Religion and Society

... As an emerging field, nonreligious studies developed similarly to other fields: As in the field of religion, the study of nonreligion experienced a material turn (Schulz & Binder, 2023). In addition to that, various case studies emerged that provided insights into the lived realities of nonreligion. ...

Introduction: An Anthropology of Nonreligion?

Religion and Society