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Feminist Reflections on Religion in Local Politics Sukhwant Dhaliwal

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Feminist Reflections on Religion in Local Politics Sukhwant Dhaliwal RELIGION, MORAL HEGEMONY AND LOCAL CARTOGRAPHIES OF POWER: FEMINIST REFLECTIONS ON RELIGION IN LOCAL POLITICS SUKHWANT DHALIWAL DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY GOLDSMITHS UNIVERSITY OF LONDON A thesis submitted in the candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy London, January 2012 1 Declaration I declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Sukhwant Dhaliwal 2 Acknowledgements The research and writing for this thesis was made possible by an ESRC studentship without which it would not have been produced. I owe a great debt to three people who have carried me through the last few years to thesis submission: to Professor Chetan Bhatt who I approached nearly ten years ago with a scrappy proposal to write 'something' on religion and who has certainly tested the parameters of my knowledge and opened my eyes to new ways of seeing; to Professor Les Back for teaching me to think and write in a more nuanced and less rhetorical way, for being consistently upbeat and motivating me to keep going to the end; and to Lesley Hewings at the Goldsmiths Graduate Centre for the 'nagging emails' that gradually drew me to the finishing line. Special thanks to all three of them for putting up with my surreal understanding of time. I also want to acknowledge my political sisters at SBS and WAF whose courage, and indeed humour, is difficult to match. I am particularly grateful to: Poonam Joshi for morning giggles, for keeping me grounded and for willing me on, almost daily, in the most interesting ways; Pragna Patel for political satire and glasses of wine in between meetings and to whom I still owe a pound of flesh for covering my back during the write up; Rahila Gupta whose dry wit and Zen- like calm eases the pain of hearing home truths about my relationship with time, numbers and words; and Gita Sahgal whose ideas and conversations continue to inspire and test both knowledge and activism. A deep note of appreciation to Janet Newman, John Clarke, Naomi Goldenberg and Dwijen Rangenakar for suggested readings and invaluable sounding spaces for some of the ideas contained within this thesis. I also want to express my appreciation for the friendship, unflinching level of belief, moral support and happy breaks from work with Maria Adelantado, Sian Moore, Wilf Sullivan, my two brothers, Balwant Dhaliwal, Manjit Sandhu and Kuldip Sandhu. A big thank you also to anti-racist comrades - Cilius Victor, Kevin Blowe and Ilona Aronovsky - for directing me to contacts in Newham and for their honest, albeit challenging, feedback which forced me to think hard about my arguments. A deep note of gratitude to my parents for housing me, feeding me and sustaining me financially in the final months of writing and also for forcing me to keep the PhD in perspective. A thank you also to my partner Paolo Cardullo for the most amazing home cooked (comfort) food, TLC and intense technical support. Last but not at all least, this thesis owes a great deal to the immense free and voluntary 3 engagement of over 50 participants (interviewees and other contacts) who set aside several hours at a time to contribute to what they saw as an important discussion about religion and public life within their local areas. I do hope that they will find some of my reflections of use in thinking through the implications of the ‘faith agenda’ at a local level. 4 Abstract This is a comparative feminist analysis of religion in local politics within two London boroughs: Ealing and Newham. Starting from the observation that there has been a de-secularisation of relations between the state and civil society in Britain, it draws upon the feminist and anti racist critique of multiculturalism to produce new reflections on the shift to multifaithism. This thesis argues that the shift is the result of a double movement - from above and from below - and enables moral hegemony. By re-orienting an analysis of the religious-secular to local cartographies of power, this thesis makes smaller claims that run alongside and pose questions for a growing consensus within feminist theory that seeks a distance from secularism, that emphasises solidarities with faith based mobilisations and seeks to uncritically defend religious minority claims. The data comprises 47 in depth interviews with 'secular', 'religious' and 'state' actors. This is supplemented with ethnographic observations from public meetings, religious processions and other events. The empirical analysis discusses the following key themes: the way in which religion is welded to electoral politics; religious commitment as an ontological, aesthetic and affective source for social responsibility and political engagement; the shared pastoral-policing functions of religious organisations and the state; the emergence of religious 'election' as a new way of re-ordering local areas and access to welfare services; the negotiation of a new wave of Muslim political identifications in the context of the War on Terror; the perpetuation of a unanimist Khalsa norm and its implications for making religious claims; and a closer consideration of religious groups in alliance, the darker side of faith as social capital. 5 Table of Contents Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................3 Abstract.........................................................................................................................5 Acronyms....................................................................................................................10 Introduction.................................................................................................................13 Chapter 1: Governing the Public Sphere, Religion and Civil Society........................23 Introduction.......................................................................................................23 From Multiculturalism to Multifaithism...........................................................24 The multiculturalism settlement...................................................................26 The problems with multiculturalism.............................................................27 Recognition versus redistribution.................................................................33 Towards multifaithism and de-secularisation...............................................34 New Labour, Religion, Equality and Communitarianism.................................46 New Labour's 'faith agenda'..........................................................................48 Self-regulating individuals and communities of allegiance..........................51 Between cohesion and prevent.....................................................................55 Faith as social capital....................................................................................63 From a Politics of Values to a Politics of Virtues..............................................67 A new 'faiths' literature and field..................................................................67 Big Society, Good Society, Red Tory and Blue Labour...............................75 Conclusion.........................................................................................................83 Chapter 2: Religion and Electoral Representation: a Fine Balance............................90 Introduction.......................................................................................................90 The Ealing Story................................................................................................90 Two poles of power: IWA and SGSSS..........................................................92 The Sikh complaint.....................................................................................104 The Newham Story..........................................................................................113 6 The onward march of Christianity?............................................................117 The Iraq War and the Respect Party...........................................................129 Conclusion.......................................................................................................139 Chapter 3: Religion Can Move You: Exploring the Possibilities..............................143 Introduction.....................................................................................................143 Heaven on Earth: Living out a Faithful Life...................................................143 Being Jesus, being human...........................................................................144 Anti capital and anti state............................................................................149 Man vs. God: competing or complimentary authorities?...........................152 Open up the Airwaves and Let Love In...........................................................156 From sorrow to joy.....................................................................................157 A life without music....................................................................................160 Liturgy as form...........................................................................................165 Form as social control.................................................................................168 Conclusion.......................................................................................................171 Chapter 4: 'Vestigial States': Reviving and Contesting Religious Leaderships........174 Introduction.....................................................................................................174
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