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While historically sharing the characteristics of a universalistic religion and a modernist grand narrative, global Buddhism is mainly the product of a late modern development. Centripetal forces with circulating ideas, practices, and institutions have been part of a liberal market in an open exchange society with 'open hermeneutics' and an accessible universal grammar. Its global focus has triggered de-ethnification, de-culturalization, and de-territorialization, claiming transnational universality as a central paradigm fit for a global world beyond isolationalist particularism. However, such seemingly universalist versions of a global Buddhism in recent years, mainly in North America, have been criticized for actually being representations of particular cultures (e.g. 'white Buddhism') with benefits for only particular segments. This article investigates the discourses of this new turn, involving questions of authority, authenticity, identity, cultural appropriation, and representation. It is suggested that criticism of global Buddhism should be seen as typical of what could be called 'post-global Buddhism', in which identity politics is a frame of reference serving as a centrifugal force, signaling a new phase in 'Western Buddhism'. The relevance for the study of religion is further discussed with reflections on how to respond to post-global religious identity politics without being consumed by neither stark objectivism nor subjectivist go-nativism. ; While historically sharing the characteristics of a universalistic religion and a modernist grand narrative, global Buddhism is mainly the product of a late modern development. Centripetal forces with circulating ideas, practices, and institutions have been part of a liberal market in an open exchange society with "open hermeneutics" and an accessible universal grammar. Its global focus has triggered de-ethnification, de-culturalization, and de-territorialization, claiming transnational universality as a central paradigm fit for a global world beyond isolationalist particularism. However, such seemingly universalist versions of a global Buddhism in recent years, mainly in North America, have been criticized for actually being representations of particular cultures (e.g., "white Buddhism") with benefits for only particular segments. This article investigates the discourses of this new turn, involving questions of authority, authenticity, identity, cultural appropriation, and representation. It is suggested that criticism of global Buddhism should be seen as typical of what could be called "postglobal Buddhism," in which identity politics is a frame of reference serving as a centrifugal force, signaling a new phase in "Western Buddhism." The relevance for the study of religion is further discussed with reflections on how to respond to post-global religious identity politics without being consumed by either stark objectivism or subjectivist go-nativism.

Drawing on international and thematic case studies, 'The Critical Analysis of Religious Diversity' asks its readers to pay attention to the assumptions and processes by which scholars, religious practitioners and states construct religious diversity. The study has three foci: theoretical and methodological issues; religious diversity in non-Western contexts; and religious diversity in social contexts. Together, these trans-contextual studies are utilised to develop a critical analysis exploring how agency, power and language construct understandings of religious diversity. As a result, the book argues that reflexive scholarship needs to consider that the dynamics of diversification and homogenisation are fundamental to understanding social and religious life, that religious diversity is a Western concept, and that definitions of ?religious diversity? are often entangled by and within dynamic empirical realities

"Asia has a long history of different kinds of religious diversity with various forms of syncretic traditions and pragmatic practices continuously having been challenged by centrifugal forces of differentiation. This anthology explores representations and managements of religious diversity in Japan, China, South Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and diaspora religions originating in these countries, seen through the lenses of history, identity, state, ritual and geography. Apart from presenting empirical cases, the chapters also address theoretical and methodological reflections using Asia as a laboratory for further comparative research of the relevance and use of 'religious diversity'. Contributors are: Donald Baker, Ugo Dessi, Chung Van Hoang, Ayelet Harel-Shalev, Noa Levy, Gideon Elazar, Santosh K. Singh, Yu Tao, Ed Griffith, Satoko Fujiwara, Uwe Skoda, Tudor Silva, Martin Tsang, Marianne Q. Fibiger, Jørn Borup, Lene Kühle"--

Mindfulness, yoga, Tantra, Zen, martial arts, karma, 'feng shui', Ayurveda. Eastern ideas and practices associated with Asian religions and spirituality have been accommodated to a global setting as both a spiritual/religious and a broader cultural phenomenon. 'Eastern spirituality' is present in organized religions, the spiritual New Age market, arts, literature, media, therapy, and health care but also in public institutions such as schools and prisons. 'Eastspirit: Transnational spirituality and religious circulation in East and West' describes and analyses such concepts, practices and traditions in their new 'Western' and global contexts as well as in their transformed expressions and reappropriations in religious traditions and individualized spiritualities 'back in the East' within the framework of mutual interaction and circulation, regionally and globally.