Liberation and Purity : Race, New Religious Movements and the Ethics of Postmodernity

Examines the ideas and organization of new Islamic, Hindu and other movements. Considers the creation of new traditions and ethnicities in these movements as well as the key themes of liberation central to many of them, such as purity and pollution. Bhatt also looks at the relationship between right wing and progressive social movements.

First published in 1997. The rise of new religious movements has raised important questions about how race, ethnicity and the lives of black minority commu­nities in the West are to be understood. In Liberation and purity, Chetan Bhatt critically examines the ideas and organization of new Hindu and Islamic movements and relates this to contemporary debates in philosophy, social theory and cultural studies. He considers the creation of new traditions and new ethnicities by these movements and explores how ideas of purity, pollution, the body, sexuality and gender are key themes in their ideas of emancipation. Bhatt explores the relationship between right-wing and progressive social movements in modern civil societies, and examines the influence on these movements of new globally-organized commu­nications technologies.