This article is a study of the continuities and changes in the state-led institutionalisation of religion in the PRC from 1979 to 2009 and their effects on the structuring of China's religious field. A normative discourse on religion is constituted by a network of Party leaders, officials, academics, and religious leaders. Official religious institutions have become hybrids of religious culture with the institutional habitus of work units (danwei) in the socialist market economy. A wide range of religious practices have found legitimacy under secular labels such as health, science, culture, tourism, or heritage. Religious affairs authorities have begun to acknowledge the existence of this expanding realm of religious life, and to accord discursive legitimacy to the previously stigmatised or ignored categories of popular religion and new religions, but hesitate to propose an explicit change in policy.
目次
The state-led institutionalisation of religion in the PRC 18 The discursive network on religion 21 The evolving discourse of Party leaders 22 The system of religious management: United Front, Religious Affairs Bureau, official associations 24 The management of religious clergy 26 Managing places of religious worship 27 Non-"religious" orthodoxies and heterodoxies 28 Opening the category of religion 28 Conclusion 30
