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Religions
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Nationalisms and Religious Identities—2nd Edition
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Nationalisms and Religious Identities—2nd Edition

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2025) | Viewed by 1983

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Slavica Jakelić

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
The Humanities Christ College, The Honors College of Valparaiso University, Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493, USA
Interests: religion and nationalism; religious and secular humanisms; theories of modernity; interreligious conflict and dialogue
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since the 1990s, categories such as “religious nationalism” and “religious ethnonationalism” have been established as commonplace in the studies of religio-national connections as sources of exclusion and conflict. This Special Issue will focus on the relationship between nationalisms and religious identities to complicate the usual approaches to religious and national identification. We are interested in probing the religio-national phenomenology with regard to gender race, and class. We welcome contributions that challenge the binary accounts of nationalism and religious identities, including contributions that engage in the postcolonial and decolonial frames of analysis and critique. We seek articles that examine transnational politics and universal aspects of religious identities, as these challenge the nation-state configurations of national identities and the boundaries of citizenship. We invite sociological, historical, theoretical and normative scholarly articles that address the relationship between nationalism and religious identities.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200–300 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editor or the Assistant Editor of Religions. Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors in order to ensure that the articles fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer review.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Slavica Jakelić
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nationalisms and religious identities
  • gender, race, and class
  • citizenship
  • transnational politics
  • postcolonial and decolonial critiques

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

21 pages, 275 KB  
Article
“People Said My Father Was Supposedly Polish, but It Made No Difference to Him”—A Vernacular Perspective on National and Religious Identifications in the Subcarpathian Countryside Before and After World War II
by Magdalena Lubańska
Religions 2026, 17(4), 415; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17040415 - 25 Mar 2026
Viewed by 463
Abstract
In this article I analyse the period of social and political upheaval faced by mixed Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic families living in the Subcarpathian countryside in the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on a vernacular perspective often overlooked in nation-centric historiographies, I describe [...] Read more.
In this article I analyse the period of social and political upheaval faced by mixed Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic families living in the Subcarpathian countryside in the 1930s and 1940s. Focusing on a vernacular perspective often overlooked in nation-centric historiographies, I describe the nature of neighbourly relations and collective identity both before and after World War II. I pay particular attention to the ambiguous connections between religious and ethnic identities before the war, highlighting phenomena such as bi-ritualism and diglossia. I then juxtapose this with the specific circumstances of 1944–1945, when villagers were frequently forced to choose their ethnic identity under the threat of Polish and Ukrainian nationalist guerrillas, especially active during that time. Building on a rich body of ethnographic material, I argue that choices of ethnic identity during a “state of exception” were often unstable and shaped primarily by the imperative of survival and other pragmatic considerations. However, I also present tragic stories of mixed families, where the ethnic choices made by some individuals were rooted in their deeply held convictions. Additionally, I reference scholars who are re-evaluating and complicating the relationship between nationalism and religious identity in rural European communities living in border areas, including Norman Davies, Kate Brown, Max Bergholz, and Jarosław Syrnyk. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nationalisms and Religious Identities—2nd Edition)
15 pages, 272 KB  
Article
Anti-Conversion Laws and the Governance of Belonging Under Hindu Nationalism
by Jiyeon Choe
Religions 2026, 17(3), 391; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel17030391 - 20 Mar 2026
Viewed by 833
Abstract
This study analyzes how state-level anti-conversion laws in India—ostensibly enacted to protect the religious freedom of vulnerable communities—can structurally generate minority–minority conflicts within Adivasi (tribal) populations. Similar patterns have surfaced across multiple regions. This study examines cases from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand as [...] Read more.
This study analyzes how state-level anti-conversion laws in India—ostensibly enacted to protect the religious freedom of vulnerable communities—can structurally generate minority–minority conflicts within Adivasi (tribal) populations. Similar patterns have surfaced across multiple regions. This study examines cases from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand as illustrative modalities of this broader pattern: spectacular violence, everyday exclusion, and legal weaponization. The analysis identifies three mechanisms that produce these conflicts. Firstly, the “Hindu-plus” classificatory framework incorporates diverse indigenous traditions into an expanded Hindu category while positioning non-Indic religions as external. Secondly, anti-conversion laws frame religious change as a threat to indigenous cultural identity, and the state delegates enforcement to village councils, customary authorities, and judicial–administrative institutions. Thirdly, the politics of belonging translates these classificatory and enforcement practices into membership boundaries that operate through territorial control and cultural claims to authenticity, producing inclusion and exclusion. The findings suggest that anti-conversion laws operate as a political technology of protection, generating minority–minority conflicts while channeling disputes over rights into nationalist boundary-making over minority identity and belonging. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nationalisms and Religious Identities—2nd Edition)
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