Identités globales et religion à l’ère digitale : vers les Global Identity Studies

Abstract

Identity is inseparable from the religious conceived as an irreducible human imaginary infrastructure. The global deployment of digital living spaces connected via the internet, because it transforms identity, also transforms the form (orthopraxy) and the substance of the religious (orthodoxy). This digitalization of sociality is manifested by the existence of a new layer of identity stemming from deterritorialised spaces of desire (socio-digital networks) which, by interacting with other territorialised layers (national, regional, etc.), give rise to Global Identities. Religious identities in the digital age are caught up in this process. This is evidenced by the digital development of new spiritualities, or the socialization trough socio-digital networks of the new Islamic terrorists, the jihadists 2.0. Relying mainly on my work on identity mutations in globalization, religious in particular, this article aims to defend the productivity of the concept of Global Identities and the scientific approach of Global Identity Studies.