Beaman, Lori G.

The authors focus on the case of the “Trident Three”, who boarded a Trident submarine control station on barge on a Scottish loch and, using their bare hands and small hammers, disabled much of the computer equipment in the station, temporarily disarming one third of Britain’s nuclear weapons system. Drawing primarily on a discourse analysis of the case, the authors identify a profound disjuncture between the ways in which the law and religious discourse framed the actions of the Trident Three. They explore the ways in which religious claims are reshaped by legal discourse as isolated actions rather than as actions set in a broader moral context with transcendental implications. Their project is to conduct a socio-legal analysis of competing discourses, paying particular attention to the ways in which power relations are worked out. They also acknowledge the contribution of social movements literature to an understanding of the ways in which groups deploy notions of “the good society” or “the public good” in order to ground their justification of choice of action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The chapter, "Being on the mat: Quasi-sacred spaces, ‘exotic’ other places, and yoga studios in the ‘West’" was written by Lisa Smith (Douglas College Faculty). Book description: This volume considers the phenomenon of yoga travel as an instance of a broader genre of ‘spiritual travel’ involving journeys to places ‘elsewhere’, which are imagined to offer the possibility of profound personal transformation. These imaginings are tied up in a continued exoticization of the East, but they are not limited to that. Contributors identify various themes such as authenticity, suffering, space, material markers, and the idea of the ‘spiritual’, tracing how these ideas manifest in conceptions and fetishizations of ‘elsewhere.’ To deepen its analysis of this phenomenon, the book incorporates a wide range of disciplines including architecture, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, women’s studies, religious studies, and history. While the book’s primary focus is yoga and yoga travel, contributors offer up an array of other case studies. Chapters delve into the complex questions of agency and authenticity that accompany the concept of ‘spiritual travel’ and ideas of ‘elsewhere.’ Chapter abstract: While most Westerners might not be able to provide an in-depth explanation of what exactly it is, yoga is a familiar word, even if it looks significantly different from practices that one might find in India. This chapter draws on a mini ethnography of two yoga studios in Montreal in order to better understand and examine yoga in the ‘West’. The author argues that yoga studios can reveal some of the particularities of self-formation in the West as it relates to the construction of the spiritual and religious subject. Most contemporary yoga studios house all manner of religious and spiritual objects that refer to exotic other places; indeed, it is this connection to ‘other’ places that lends the studio its legitimacy as a sacred space.

Over the past decade, several public reports and discussions have exposed the relationship between secularism and equality between women and men. In many instances, gender equality seems to be considered only in a secular context. Recent public debates on religion and diversity in Quebec illustrate how secularism and equality for women are paralleled. In this article we examine how the notion of gender equality is manifested in some of the briefs submitted before the Bouchard- Taylor Commission, in the report of the commissioners, and in subsequent public discussions conducted on the subject. We then explore the ways in which gender equality has emerged as the central theme of the briefs submitted to the National Assembly of Quebec on the occasion of the debate on the Quebec Charter of Values. Our analysis reveals that both religious and non-religious women are imagined to be in need of protection: religious women because they are assumed to have no agency and non-religious women because they should not be exposed to religious dogma. Both positions, we argue represent the continuation of a patriarchal approach that refutes a woman's ability to act of her own volition. Further, we challenge the idea that gender equality is the property and domain of laïcité, which is itself implicated in patriarchy and invested in the inequality of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Abstract (French):