04 May 2021
Interreligious Relations (IRR) Issue 23 – The Construction of Nonreligious Identities among Chinese Millennials in Singapore: A Qualitative Study by Oliver Zikai Lim
Abstract:
This paper investigates the lived experiences of Singaporean Chinese millennials who adopt a nonreligious identity following the recent increase in the percentage of people who identify as having no religious affiliation in the country. Using a qualitative research framework, the author discursively explores the life worlds of three individuals to reveal a contextual fluidity inherent within the overarching “nonreligious” label. The study demonstrates that the construction of a nonreligious identity is influenced by the perpetual tension between Singapore’s unique secular multireligious legislation and educational policy, the dominant Western discourse on religion, and far-reaching Chinese cosmological perspectives as they intersect socially in the lives of these individuals growing up in a diverse country. Using religious studies scholar Paul Hedges’ model of Chinese religion as “strategic participation in a shared landscape,” the author illustrates that despite adopting a nonreligious identity, the individuals embody the same religious hybridity as their parents and families as they adopt a “modern dimension of Chinese religion” by strategically participating in Singapore’s unique contemporary social, political and religious landscape as they see fit to maintain harmony at home and in their social lives. Thus, Singaporean Chinese millennials who identify as nonreligious could – from a Sino-centric perspective – still be considered “religious.”
Abstract:
This paper investigates the lived experiences of Singaporean Chinese millennials who adopt a nonreligious identity following the recent increase in the percentage of people who identify as having no religious affiliation in the country. Using a qualitative research framework, the author discursively explores the life worlds of three individuals to reveal a contextual fluidity inherent within the overarching “nonreligious” label. The study demonstrates that the construction of a nonreligious identity is influenced by the perpetual tension between Singapore’s unique secular multireligious legislation and educational policy, the dominant Western discourse on religion, and far-reaching Chinese cosmological perspectives as they intersect socially in the lives of these individuals growing up in a diverse country. Using religious studies scholar Paul Hedges’ model of Chinese religion as “strategic participation in a shared landscape,” the author illustrates that despite adopting a nonreligious identity, the individuals embody the same religious hybridity as their parents and families as they adopt a “modern dimension of Chinese religion” by strategically participating in Singapore’s unique contemporary social, political and religious landscape as they see fit to maintain harmony at home and in their social lives. Thus, Singaporean Chinese millennials who identify as nonreligious could – from a Sino-centric perspective – still be considered “religious.”
