Introduction Material Secularities

This introduction to the special issue Material Secularities introduces our conceptualization of secularity as a principle of drawing boundaries through which the distinction between religious and non-religious becomes manifested. It calls detailed attention to the actual ways in which objects on the religion-secular boundary are re-signified and shifted into new spatial configurations, and the tensions and uncertainties that are entailed by these processes. We argue that such processes cannot be fully understood by returning to theories of social differentiation which tend to reify categorizations on a once and for all basis. What is needed is a material approach acknowledging that differentiation and signification are not merely abstract and unidirectional processes, but always work on and with tangible materials that constitute worlds of lived experience. This is what we seek to convey through the concept of material secularities.