EXC 2060 B3-20 - Testing and contesting religious pluralism in Uganda

The project pursues three guiding questions: what mobilizing potential do idioms of religious community and orthopraxy unfold in the interactive space generated by religious leaders and their followers? On what - partly innovative - discursive and organizational resources do religious leaders draw to mobilize followers and what cognitive-argumentative, aesthetic-sensory and performative- choreographic dimensions intertwine in their mobilization activities? What institutional, technical and political conditions foster religious leaders' intentions and capacities to encourage a lived religious pluralism, based on the mutual recognition of, and often pragmatic coming to terms with, religious difference.

By focussing on contemporary Uganda, a nation-state in which "religion" pervades the forms and issues of ethno-political competition and conflict, the project offers an empirically grounded investigation into the institutional, political and technical conditions under which "religion" may unfold its potential to delegitimize violence and attenuate disagreements over what people consider insurmountable differences in worldview, orthopraxy and the moral foundations of political community. The project also contributes to the development of a conceptual framework for a systematic study of how cognitive, performative, and aesthetic dimensions intertwine to generate religion's mobilizing appeal and to mould the affective disposition and attitudes of believers.