Cases and Contexts
RELEX conducts research cross-culturally including the socio-economically, culturally, and religiously different national contexts of Finland, Ghana, India, and Peru. In each national context, our empirical investigation focuses on the religious and/or non-religious outlooks and values of persons subjected to social exclusion due to: 1) imprisonment; 2) ethnic/indigenous minority position; and 3) identification as LGBTQI+. In relation to each case and context, we limit our research to young adults (aged 18–29). The life-phase of young adulthood has been shown to have a highly formative impact on peoples’ religious outlooks, but the potentially decisive impact that the experience of social exclusion can have in this regard remains to be adequately explored. Furthermore, the choice to focus on young adults indicates future societal developments and the development of appropriate future policies aimed at combating social exclusion.
Prison Incarceration
Prison incarceration constitutes a very particular case of social exclusion whereby a person is removed from participation in wider society and (temporarily) housed in an environment that is highly exclusionary by design. The presence and function of religion in prison, both historical and contemporary, has been the subject of a fair amount of previous research, yet, little is known about incarcerated people’s religious outlooks and values, especially across non-Western contexts.
Ethnic and Indigenous Minority Groups and Communities
Ethnic and Indigenous minority groups and communities have historically experienced several types of social exclusion, including restrictions on access to education, political participation and self-determination, and denial of rights to ancestral lands. For these types of groups, religion often provides an important source of collective identity, yet their religiosities have often been socially and culturally devalued by majority institutions and groups. RELEX focuses on four ethnic minorities and/or indigenous groups that are each associated with particular forms of religion and that each face several types of context-dependent social exclusion. These particular groups have been chosen in careful consultation with our international partners.
LGBTQI+ Communities
LGBTQI+ communities have historically experienced several forms of social exclusion and discrimination. While the situation nowadays differs notably from one cultural context to another, the social exclusion of LGBTQI+ persons has often been justified on religious grounds, as sexual and gender non-conformity has been deemed incompatible with religious mores. LGBTQI+ communities all over the world have consequently often stood in a strenuous relationship with dominant religious establishments in particular. Attitudes towards LGBTQI+ persons vary decisively between Finland, Ghana, India, and Peru. While a fair amount of research exists on LGBTQI+ and religion in Western contexts, less is known about the situation in most other parts of the world and research combining and comparing several contexts is rare.
