Insular religious communities offer significant insights into some of the issues facing contemporary Western societies, including the issues of religious secrecy and surveillance. The role of secrecy in these communities involves dynamic strategies invoked for many reasons in equally numerous contexts. The behaviours and practices of these groups often reflect much larger issues present in today’s society. In this way, they can guide us in understanding the role of surveillance from a sociological perspective in the current climate of tensions and anxieties. These communities are especially useful for thinking about questions of why some religious groups rigidly control and restrict access to bodies of secret, sacred knowledge or activities and in turn how religious secrecy is viewed by the wider social worlds in which their degree of visibility fluctuates. Here, I suggest an opportunity emerges for the study of secrecy in relation to the notion of regulating visibility by reorienting the focus from the roles of secrets and of secretive practices to one that also considers the more visible forms and strategies through which secrets and secretive practices come to be and are sustained.

中文翻译：

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调节可见性：孤立宗教社区的秘密和监视

岛上的宗教团体对当代西方社会面临的一些问题，包括宗教保密和监视问题，提供了重要的见识。在这些社区中，保密的作用涉及在许多情况下出于多种原因而调用的动态策略。这些群体的行为和做法经常反映出当今社会存在的更大问题。这样，他们可以指导我们从社会学的角度理解监视在当前紧张局势和焦虑气氛中的作用。这些社区对于思考以下问题特别有用：为什么某些宗教团体会严格控制并限制人们进入秘密机构，神圣的知识或活动，进而改变了社会的知名度如何变化的更广阔的社会世界如何看待宗教秘密。在这里，我建议通过将焦点从秘密和秘密行为的角色重新定位为也考虑更秘密的形式和策略的秘密和秘密行为，来研究与调节可见性有关的秘密。成为并保持下去。