The present volume aims to analyze the relationshipbetween religion and modernity in terms of thedynamic processes by which they are connected. Indoing so, it draws on a variety of discourses in thesocial and cultural sciences that address thequestion of modernity by locating it between theconflicting priorities of the dis-enchantment andre-enchantment of the world. In these discourses, itis widely agreed that, particularly outside WesternEurope, processes of secularization did not happenas predicted. However, an open question remains: ifmodernity is not able to transform religion intoreason, what, then, can modernity do with religion?By explicitly raising this issue, the present volumetries to describe the dynamic relationship betweenreligion and modernity by referring to SoutheastAsia as an ethnographic example.

Southeast Asia has always been a crossroads of manydifferent influences from India, China and Europe.All global religions are represented in the area,and they interact not only with each other, but alsowith local belief systems. Majority religions insome parts of Southeast Asia find themselves to beminority religions in others. However, it is notonly religions that crisscross geographical andpolitical boundaries – people do so as well. Theresult is an impressive network of ethnic andreligious groups that define themselves not only inrelation and in opposition to each other but alsovis-à-vis a rapidly changing world. The presentvolume deals with the impact of modernity on ethnicand religious plurality in Southeast Asia withspecial reference to these interactiveprocesses.

According to modernization theory, one of the masternarratives of the second half of the twentiethcentury, the relationship between modernity andreligion is competitive, contradictory and mutuallyexclusive. The assumption has prevailed in thesocial and cultural sciences that thedifferentiation of capitalist forms of economy andthe modern nation-state, together with therationalization of the conduct of life, wouldsubject religion to encompassing transformations.The thesis of the progressive secularization of theworld is associated with Max Weber in particular,though in his works it remained peculiarlyundetermined whether the ‘Entzauberung der Welt’would make religion disappear altogether or restrictit to the private sphere alone (cf. Weber 1985[1922]: 612).