Prof. Dr. Beatrice Renzi

Curriculum Vitae

Junioprofessorin für die Anthropologie und Religion Südasiens am Max-Weber-Kolleg

Nach dem Studium der Wirtschaftswissenschaften in Rom, Italien, schloss Beatrice Renzi ihr Diplom in Economics mit Auszeichnung ab. Auf ihr Diplom folgte der Master of Science in Foreign Service mit einem Fulbright-Stipendium an der Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA. Dort war sie im Bereich Internationale und Technische Zusammenarbeit bei der Weltbank für Projekte in Südasien, Afrika und im Nahen Osten tätig. Danach kehrte Beatrice Renzi nach Europa zurück, erst zum Zentrum für Entwicklungsforschung in Bonn und dann zur Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, wo sie nach mehreren Langzeitaufenthalten in Südasien mit summa cum laude im Fach Ethnologie promoviert wurde. Es folgten Lehr- und Forschungstätigkeiten in den Bereichen Anthropologie, Religionssoziologie und Südasienwissenschaften an den Universitäten in Mainz, Bern und Fribourg. Seit 2017 ist Beatrice Renzi Inhaberin der Juniorprofessur für die Anthropologie und Religion Südasiens am Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien.

Forschung

Zu den Forschungsschwerpunkten von Betrice Renzi zählen die Bereiche: Anthropologie und Religion Südasiens, Religionswissenschaft, politische Systeme, soziale und religiöse Bewegungen, Intersektionalität.

Lehre

In der Lehre bietet Beatrice Renzi Veranstaltungen zu den Themen: Religion im modernen Indien, zur Ethnografie, zur Religionssoziologie, zur Politikfeldanalyse und zum Vergleich politischer Systeme.

Religious individualization and the collective self. Revisiting questions of agency through a study of religiosity in India

The project takes an anthropological approach to the study of what we term ‘religion’, which seeks to highlight the polyvalent nature of religious beliefs and practices and foreground their sociocultural dimensions within the Indian context. In this sense, religion is explored from the perspectives of social actors and in terms of its embeddedness in historically contingent processes shaping specific forms of sociality, of public rule and economic transaction. While the focus lies on the post-independence period, the issues at hand are historically contextualized within the larger framework of modern India.

The aim is to deepen our understanding of how different movements and social actors have availed themselves of secular-religious repertoires, and the value systems in which they are embedded, as means of collective identity formation and public representation. In particular, the project explores how beliefs and practices followed by diverse communities interrelate with each other. It engages in an analysis of agency within a broad spectrum of often eclectic and ambivalent religious pathways, which are expressive of fluctuating processes of individual and collective self-conception. The study more closely examines how claims for recognition interrelate with processes of religious individualization and institutionalization. Through case studies on diverse traditions and their followings, it shows how different conceptions of the self, of liberation and of the social and cosmic order interface with the ways communities negotiate the material and symbolic dimensions of secular-religious regimes, re-appropriating some elements and rejecting others, enabling certain practices and disabling others. The project sheds light on the degree of autonomy that these social actors have in opening up spaces for more egalitarian and dignified forms of belonging.

More broadly, attention is given to investigating how these developments have shaped the meanings of religion and modernity with its diverse social imaginaries. The project also raises wider theoretical questions seeking to critically appraise analytical perspectives of the religious field, such as those based on dichotomous demarcations vis-à-vis the ‘non-religious’ or those centered on dogmatic corpuses taken as normative categories detached from their historical situatedness. This also allows developing some larger theoretical considerations on the nature of social change.

• ​​​​​​Renzi, B. (2024): „Social belonging and the politics of pride and shame“, in: R. Bhargava and N. Bhattacharya (Hrsg.) Concepts and the Idea of the Political. New Delhi: Sage, (i. E.).
• Renzi, B. (2024): „Intersectional perspectives on Dalit women and justice: Exploring the systemic interlinkages between patriarchy, caste and class“, in: A. Linkenbach and A. Malik (Hrsg.) Realizing Justice? Normative Orders and the Realities of (In)Justice in India, New Delhi: Manohar.
• Renzi, B.; Fuchs M.; Linkenbach A. (2023): „Theorizing Across Traditions: Social Science as a Polyphonic Encounter“, in: B. Hollstein, H. Rosa and J. Rüpke (Hrsg.) „Weltbeziehung”. The Study of our Relationship to the World, Frankfurt: Campus.
• Anti-caste radicalism, Dalit movements and the many critiques of secular-nationalism in India. In M. Burchardt, M. Wohlrab-Sahr, M. Middell (eds.) 2015. Multiple Secularities Beyond the West: Religion and Modernity in the Global Age. Berlin: De Gruyter.
• Between the village and the West: Local research associates and the challenge of mediation. Working Paper Series, No. 55, Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, 2005.

The M.S. Merian – R. Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political’ (ICAS:MP)

Closed Project

Kolleg-Forschergruppe: Religiöse Individualisierung in historischer Perspektive