Kim Knott, Professor Emerita, Politics, Philosophy and Religion, Lancaster University, UK
Abstract: The case for ‘unlearning’ in the study of religions: Pros and cons, interconnections and added value
In the popular and academic literature, the concept of ‘unlearning’ is overwhelmingly positive. It is posited as a necessary yet transformational process that allows for reflexivity, rejuvenation and radical change. But the concept has also been challenged by critics who question its definitional and theoretical clarity and empirical value.
Turning to the study of religions, would the addition of ‘unlearning’ to the conceptual and practical toolbox face similar problems or can a case be made for it? Is there any need for it in the crowded space of ‘learning’, ‘socialization’ and ‘religious change’, of biographical processes such as spiritual seeking and conversion careers, and of other concepts, such as ‘deconversion’, ‘disaffiliation’, ‘leaving religion’, and ‘deprogramming’? Might ‘unlearning’ have a role to play in drawing together a cluster of ideas that have popular traction, such as loss of belief, forgetting, discarding old habits (rituals, dress, group-speak etc), erasing unhelpful thoughts, and withdrawing from groups or networks. Is it best seen as a developmental stage in the spiritual journey, a strategy for leaving or moving on from a religious commitment, or just a wellbeing practice designed to give the mind and body a deep-clean?
Within a broader context of social learning, I will make the case for ‘unlearning’ as the connective tissue linking several better-established concepts in the study of religion. I will then identify some of the motives for unlearning in religious/spiritual contexts, the language deployed, and the mental, practical and emotional tactics used by practitioners as they seek to ‘unlearn’. The problems cited by critics do not disappear, but some interesting questions are nevertheless raised about religious/spiritual learning, agency and identity.
Bio
Kim Knott is Professor Emerita at Lancaster University, UK. She is President of the European Association for the Study of Religions and Chair of the governing board of Inform (Information Focus on Religious Minorities). She was Deputy Director of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (2015-20), and Director of the UK’s Diasporas, Migration and Identities Programme (2005-11). In recent years she published work on religious minorities and uncertainty, the urban sacred, and religion and security issues. Her work on ideological transmission and learning (with B. Lee) appears in Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression (2021) and Politics, Religion and Ideology (2020). She has long-standing research interests in religion, space and place; the ’secular sacred’; transmission and learning; and religion, migration and diasporas. She is an international member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.