Mapping religious plurality and producing "truth". A dispositive analysis of knowledge production in the study of religions

Since the 1990s, mapping religious plurality has become a research staple in the study of religions. Drawing on a sample of some sixty projects from the DACH (Germany [D], Austria [A], and Switzerland [CH]) region, the article uses dispositive analysis to show these mappings as a response to shifts in scholarly and public discourse as well as technological possibilities. The discursive practices, material forms, and institutional underpinnings that constitute the mapping dispositive show these projects as a discursive infrastructure that produces valid knowledge about religion in the contemporary world and the positionality of the study of religions in this discursive formation.