Techniques of religion-making in Sweden: The case of the Missionary Church of Kopimism

Abstract

This article is an analysis of the recognition of the Missionary Church of Kopimism as a faith community by the Swedish state. The analysis draws on post-Foucaultian writings on governmentality and seeks to understand what kind of normative and proscriptive understandings of “religion” guide the process. The authors argue that the recognition reveals fundamental aspects of the Swedish state’s performative role in the recognition of faith communities which challenges any unreflective classification of it as “secular.”