Abstract
The author argues that syncretic or hybrid cultural and religious forms should be understood in terms of the ‘‘purities’’ that they supposedly combine. Constructing and maintaining pure forms is one side of an ongoing and contingent historical process of which syncretization is the other. Pure forms are but previous and legitimated syncretizations and purity is an argument which seeks to protect its self-evidence and thereby disguise the contingency of important social forms such as cultures and religions. The proposed analysis of syncretizations and hybridizations is done in terms of three dimensions: identity, history, and power. They are particularly important in the context of globalization because identity and power are closely related and because the institutionalized reflexivity of modernity allows everything to be seen as contingent construction. The main points are illustrated with reference to religious formation processes in Islam and Buddhism.