Contesting Fundamentalisms

Increasingly discussions about fundamentalism lack precision and leave the implications of fundamentalist practices unexamined. How can we use the term so that it has analytical meaning and is not merely a label applied by self-proclaimed ‘non-fundamentalists?” In Contesting Fundamentalism, the authors expand the term fundamentalism to include an array of ideological positions in social and cultural movements. Chapters critically investigate the nature of fundamentalism in such diverse areas a economics, nationalism, aboriginal politics, and ethinc, gender and religious studies. Examining these areas through the application of a fundamentalist lens presents them in a different light ands with greater clarity. Understanding fundamentalism is a necessary undertaking for contesting its claims. These essays invite a multidimensional understanding of who or what may be called ‘Fundamentalist’ and the dilemmas that this naming creates.