Women, religion, and digital counter-publics: introduction

ABSTRACT

Even after decades of critical scholarship on religion and the Internet, a rapidly changing field and a febrile global political climate demand renewed questions about the relationships between online spaces and gender-related activism. This is particularly the case, in the post-#MeToo era, in relation to women and religion. While digital activism both promotes and challenges gender inequalities, reflecting prejudices apparent in the offline world, women and men continue to create and adapt online spaces that question received wisdom about their roles in religious traditions. We argue that using Nancy Fraser’s concept of the ‘subaltern counter-public’, adapted by Marc Lamont-Hill as the ‘digital counter-public’, allows us to explore the extent to which digital spaces enable traditional religious authority structures to be challenged in ways that might not be possible in the offline environment. The aim of this Special Issue Section is to provide four detailed case study examples, drawn from Sikhism, Wicca, Hinduism, and Buddhism, across varied geographical and political contexts, in order to examine how women have engaged the digital to create spaces that challenge mainstream narratives about their religious attainment and belonging, raising key questions for the ongoing study of religion online.

KEYWORDS:

• Women
• digital
• religion
• the Internet
• counter-public

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Caroline Starkey

Caroline Starkey is Associate Professor of Religion and Society at the University of Leeds, UK. Her research focuses on religion in contemporary Britain, particularly in relation to minority religions and gender. Her monograph Women in British Buddhism: Connection, Commitment, Community was published in 2020.

Emma Tomalin

Emma Tomalin is Professor of Religion and Public Life at the University of Leeds, UK. She has published widely on the topic of religion and gender, including Gender, Faith and Development (2011) and The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Gender and Society (with Caroline Starkey, 2022). She co-edits the Routledge Research in Religion and Development series and is co-chair of the Joint Learning Initiative on Faith and Local Community (JLI) learning hub on Anti-Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.

Anna Halafoff

Anna Halafoff is Associate Professor of Sociology at Deakin University, Australia, and a Research Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Relations–Asia Pacific, at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Her research focuses on religious diversity, worldview education, interfaith relations, preventing violent extremism, Buddhism and gender, and Buddhism in Australia. Her publications include The Multifaith Movement: Global Risks and Cosmopolitan Solutions (2013) and Education about Religions and Worldviews: Promoting Intercultural and Interreligious Understanding in Secular Societies (2016, co-edited with Elisabeth Arweck and Donald Boisvert).