Recent studies have highlighted the religious prejudices that plague communities across the United States and act as social, political, and economic barriers for many religious minority groups. These studies have noted the pervasive negative attitudes towards such American religious minorities as Muslims, atheists, Mormons, and Jews. Further, these prejudices appear to be more pronounced in the American South, a phenomenon that remains underexamined. The present study suggests the importance of and takes aim at uncovering and analyzing the social processes undergirding religious prejudices in the U.S., and of religious prejudices in the American South specifically. The study draws on qualitative data collected from eight communities across the state of Tennessee over a period of three years. My analysis of these data, first, adds indepth qualitative insight in an area of research where experimental and quantitative methods predominate. Building from threatbased theories of prejudice, I utilize critical discourse analysis to delve more deeply into the ways in which prejudices are uniquely framed and expressed by social actors within a specific sociohistorical milieu. Specifically, I pay attention to the common idioms, stories, and caricatures that are part of the discursive lexicon mobilized by residents as they encounter the religious other. Finally, I suggest that this analysis has important implications for dialogue and interventions surrounding religious differences and conflicts. The concept of the dialogic community will be highlighted as a particularly promising response to these conflicts.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-03302012-130303 |
| Date | 16 April 2012 |
| Creators | McCormack, Mark Merritt |
| Contributors | Paul W. Speer, Paul R. Dokecki |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-03302012-130303/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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