Religious Studies and the Knowledge Society

• The postmodern condition coincides, as argued by Lyotard in 1979, with the emergence of the knowledge society in which a global struggle for the resources of knowledge takes place. Both democracies and totalitarian regimes have now understood that this is the new armaments race that provides the fundament of future economic power. A central issue in this process is the access to knowledge − a question which is parallel to the access and affordability of energy. However, both access to energy and knowledge is uneven in the global system. For the most part, Scientific and scholarly knowledge is not available for free, but comes packaged in costly journals and books. This makes it difficult for institutions and individuals that are economically weak to benefit from the knowledge that is necessary for moving into the new phase of the global knowledge society. At the same time, there are movements toward Open Access publishing made possible by digitalisation and the Internet that hint at a different scenario. The commodification of knowledge thus stands in tension with the free sharing of knowledge required of an Open Society in the age of globalisation. Into the battles for control of knowledge and information also the scholarly knowledge about religion will be placed. However, religious studies does not yet possess a truly global nature and structure, as the discipline has been formed only at certain places and then differently due to local context, mostly as a result of the relation to locally dominant theological traditions, nationalism and the secularity or confessionality of the state.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Filosofi, etik och religion -- Religionsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Philosophy, Ethics and Religion -- Religious Studies (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

religious studies

knowledge society

open access

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