GUEST EDITORS’ FOREWORD: SOCIOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON RELIGION AND ECONOMY: EMERGING SPIRITUALITIES AND THE FUTURE OF WORK

Anca  SIMIONCA; Sorin  GOG

Authors

Anca SIMIONCA Lecturer PhD, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Email: anca.simionca@gmail.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2247-3856
Sorin GOG Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Email: sorin_gog@yahoo.com. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3677-9840

Abstract

This issue of Studia Sociologia focuses on alternative forms of spiritualities and the proliferation of literatures and programs of self-development (Carrette and King, 2005) emerging in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). This thematic group organizes an extensive discussion centred on the ways in which these forms of religiosity/spirituality are constituted through bio-politic mechanisms of generating a productive subjectivity (Foucault, 2007, 2008) and through socio-economic technologies of articulating a competitive and pro-active personality in the context of a new neo-liberal order (Dardot and Laval, 2014). The participating authors explore the emergence of alternative forms of spiritualities within the new post-socialist work environment and the increasing emphasis placed on the entrepreneurial development of the self; they seek to analyse the processes that converge towards supplying the post-socialist citizens with the motivational structures needed to become more competitive and productive in the global capitalist economy into which CEE countries have been incorporated in the past two decades.

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