Material Secularities

Abstract In this article, I outline why materiality and human-object relations matters for the study of secularization. Social scientific research on secularization, secularism and secularities has been, for the most part, excessively focused on what people (no more) believe in, how these beliefs have been conceptualized, made explicit and canonized, and how beliefs (and their transformation into knowledge qua evidentiary practices) relate to how people practice their religion, or cease doing that. As I will show below, materiality has played little to no role in that. But, as the articles in this collection demonstrate, materiality—objects, food, atmospheres, light, and dust—has palpable consequences for configurations of religion and secularity, folding its own temporalities and intensities into religious and secular experiences. I also argue that religious and cultural heritage is an especially fruitful field to examine the role of materiality in secularization processes.