What is vestigial state theory?
This theoretical work is situated in the evolving subfield of religious studies known as ‘critical religion.’ Although scholarship in critical religion (CR) is wide and varied, there is general agreement that ‘religion’ should cease being treated as a reified, timeless, universal fixture that has always existed in different forms throughout the world. Most CR theory postulates ‘religion’ as a product of European colonialism that has been adopted on a global scale. The category then functions as an anachronism that gains legitimacy by being read back into early histories. I further this trajectory of thinking by proposing that religions ought to be theorized as marginalized, “vestigial” states within dominant sovereignties. In general, dominant states maintain control over martial and police violence, while allowing vestigial states – i.e. religions – influence over so-called domestic, ‘personal’ spheres. However, religions are always restive and work to enlarge the jurisdictional areas allotted to them.
Publications
“Theorizing Religions as Vestigial States in Relation to Gender and Law: Three Cases,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Volume 29, no. 1, 38-50 (March 2013)
The religious is political, in The End of Religion: Feminist Reappraisals of the State, Kathleen McPhillips and Naomi Goldenberg (Eds.). New York: Routledge. 2021.