Religious memory as a conveyor of authoritative tradition: The necessary and essential component in a definition of religion

In a landmark book published in 2000, the sociologist Danièle Hervieu-Léger defined religion as a chain of memory, by which she meant that within religious communities remembered traditions are transmitted with an overpowering authority from generation to generation. After analysing Hervieu-Léger’s sociological approach as overcoming the dichotomy between substantive and functional definitions, this article compares a ritual honouring the ancestors in which a medium becomes possessed by the senior elder’s ancestor spirit among the Shona of Zimbabwe with a cleansing ritual performed by a Celtic shaman in New Hampshire, USA. In both instances, despite different social and historical contexts, appeals are made to an authoritative tradition to legitimize the rituals performed. This lends support to the claim that the authoritative transmission of a remembered tradition, by exercising an overwhelming power over communities, even if the memory of such a tradition is merely postulated, identifies the necessary and essential component for any activity to be labelled “religious”.

Risk definition and the struggle for legitimation: a case study of Bt cotton in Andhra Pradesh, India

This article explores the struggle for legitimation associated with the attempt to define the risk of Bt cotton, a genetically modified crop, in Andhra Pradesh, India. Beck asserts that, given the uncertainty associated with risk society, efforts to define risk are creating the need for a new political culture. This article argues that this political culture emerges from attempts to legitimate power within risk definition. This is examined using critical discourse analysis on interview excerpts with key figures in the Bt cotton debate. Legitimation is explored using the categories of legitimation developed by Van Leeuwen. These are (a) authorisation; (b) moral evaluation; (c) rationalisation; and (d) mythopoesis. The analysis highlights that the political culture which emerges in response to risk society is in a state of constant flux and contingent upon the ongoing struggle for legitimation with regard to the definition of risk.