Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque - A Collaborative Ethnography of War and Peace (Paperback)

The relationship between religion and conflict has been much debated in recent years, although the commentary is often prejudiced by entrenched beliefs. Checkpoint, Temple, Church and Mosque draws on material from a multi-disciplinary research project in Sri Lanka's most religiously diverse and politically troubled region. It provides a series of new and provocative theoretical arguments about the promise of a religiously based civil society, and the strengths and weaknesses of religion as a source for public action. The authors argue that, for people trapped in long and violent conflict, religion plays a contradictory role, often acting as a comforting and stabilising force but also, in certain situations, acting as a source of new conflict. Ongoing conflict itself has in turn led to changes to religious institutions. This book will re-calibrate the debate about the role of religious organisations and leaders in situations of extreme conflict and will be of great interest to students of anthropology as well as contemporary religion and peace/conflict studies.