Read the Signs: Detecting Early Warning Signals of Interreligious Conflict

Abstract

Building on recent directions in religion-related social and political science, our essay addresses the need for location-specific and religion-specific scientific research that might contribute directly to local and regional interreligious peacemaking. Over the past 11 years, our US–Pakistani research team has conducted research of this kind. We have developed a social scientific method for diagnosing the probable near-future behavior of religious stakeholder groups toward other groups. By integrating features of ethnography, linguistics, and semiotics, the method enables researchers to read a range of ethno-linguistic signals that appear uniquely in the discourses of religious groups. Examining the results, we observe, firstly, that our religion and location-specific science identifies features of religious group behavior that are not evident in broader social scientific studies of religion and conflict. We observe, secondly, that our science integrates constative and performative elements: it seeks facts, and it serves a purpose. We conclude that strictly constative fact-driven sciences may fail to detect certain crucial features of religious stakeholder group behavior.