ABSTRACT
Religiously informed confl icts have become increasingly prominent throughout the world – confl icts surrounding immigration in Europe, confl ict at religious interfaces, the Islamicisation of ethnonational movements from Palestine to Malaysia. Steve Bruce (2003, p. 2) estimates that three quarters of the confl icts since 1960 have a religious component, where many of those involved ‘explain or justify their causes by reference to their religion’. This opens a whole terrain for inquiry. Is religiously informed confl ict distinctive in form and dynamics? Do specifi c religions incline towards specifi c forms of group identity and confl ict? Are religiously defi ned groups-in-confl ict different from ethnic groups-in-confl ict? How far does the historic sequencing of state-building, nation-building and confessionalisation affect the ways ethnicity and religion intersect? What specifi c resources are associated with ethnic and with religious solidarity? What happens where ethnic and religious boundaries coincide? In such cases, how are ethnicity and religion distinguished or merged in interaction and everyday understanding? Does religion provide specifi c resources for confl ict resolution?
