Beliefs in flux: trans-national/cultural religious exchanges in the global era

The block seminar “Beliefs in flux: trans-national/cultural religious exchanges in the global era” was a collaborative experience with the participation of lecturers and students of the Protestant Faculty and the Center for Religious Studies CERES of the Ruhr University Bochum (Germany), the Theology Faculty of Deusto University (Spain), and the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies CEDEM of Université de Liège (Belgium), in the framework of the UNIC Alliance. The seminar focused on contemporary cultural and religious dynamics of transculturation and the transformation of the so-called "glocal" religious landscapes they produce. It also discusses various related theories of hybridity, world culture or globalization providing insights into concrete phenomena of belief systems in flux. Highlighted topics included how religious belief systems are in constant movement, especially in the age of globalization and instant digital exchange, and how they also “travel in the luggage” of people who move their residence to another country or region. Religious practices adapt to the new contexts, changing themselves and at the same time altering their “new” environments. That’s how, new multidirectional transcultural religious networks emerge. The result is not a uniform world culture or global religion, but hybrid identities.