A RC43 Religion and Politics Panel, 24th IPSA World Congress of Political Science, July 23-28, 2016, Istanbul, Turkey.

In this era of public religions, religious revivalists of various traditions have become powerful forces not just socially but politically in many parts of the globe. In the more successful among such cases, they have either captured the whole (as in Iran) or penetrated some crucial parts (as in Turkey and India) of the modern state, thereby garnering institutional (including discursive) leverages through which to enforce their versions of rather totalizing ‘post-secularities’ over their variously-oriented and thus multidirectional societies.

Following the footsteps of the recent scholarships built on the notions of multiple and diverse secularities, this panel proposes to historicize and compare various local efforts at resecularization, or societal (often national) struggles over reformulating and reinstitutionalizing state-religion relationships after experiencing significant periods of religious resurgence or dominance. As in secularization processes, such resecularization processes are analytically better approached as phenomena that are inherently multi-level and dimensional, contentious and mutually constituting, and nationally varying.

This panel aims to focus on cases in which resecularization involves imagining and institutionalizing alternative ‘post-secular’ state-religion relationships in their national contexts, and comparatively examine and discuss various locally-rooted cultural articulations of, and struggles for, such alternative ‘post-secular’ states.

Convenor & Chair: Yasuyuki Matsunaga (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan)
Co-Chair: Umut Azak (Okan University, Turkey)
Discussant: Naser Ghobadzadeh (Australian Catholic University, Australia)

Deadline to submit Paper proposals: October 7, 2015

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Dear Colleagues,
With the Australian annual Sociological Association conference in November, now is the best time to combine work and pleasure in Australia.

This year’s TASA Conference promises to be special. With world-class keynote and plenary speakers and a choice of 13 special interest groups, our theme, Neoliberalism and Contemporary Challenges for the Asia Pacific, will give space for world-class thinkers in sociology and related fields to interrogate the impact of neoliberalism on the lives of people around the world. We seek to understand the global effects of neoliberalism, especially how it is experienced in different local contexts. What challenges and opportunities does neoliberalism present, and how does sociology respond to those challenges?

But the location of this year’s conference gives this conference the edge. We proudly invite you and your family to visit the vibrant and beautiful Cairns. Our venue, the Shangri-La Hotel offers five star care at off-season rates. Containing the conference and delegate accommodation, the Shangri-La facilities are generous, cool and picturesque and break-out rooms have views on the tropical gardens or famous marina and gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. Family friendly room, restaurants and pools in a tropical setting will satisfy delegates’ accompanying families.

The hotel is on the Cairns Marina where you can take a tour out to the Great Barrier Reef, or hire a car and tour the World Heritage Rainforests. Within a couple of hours is the Daintree Forest. For more intrepid adventurers, Cairns is the gateway to the Cape York Peninsula, and the Gulf of Carpentaria, home to unsurpassed cultural and ecological heritage.

There is so much being planned for this year’s conference, with post-conference tours, Women’s Breakfast, a fun conference dinner that (by demand) promises dancing, and networking opportunities with stimulating company. With the Aussie Dollar continuing to fall, this is the time to to plan your next trip to Australia.

Check the conference website for full information, and note the key dates in your diary – postgraduate papers are due by 31 July; all abstracts are due by 28 August; early bird registration closes 2 October; and all presenters must be registered by 23 October. Our timeline won’t allow for any extensions so get your papers and abstracts in!

Warm regards
Theresa Petray and Anne Stephens
TASA2016 Conveners

www.conference.tasa.org.au

The post TASA Conference 2015 Cairns Neoliberalism and Contemporary Challenges for the Asia-Pacific November 23-26, 2015 appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Call for papers

Conference on “Transnational Religious Movements, Dialogue and Economic Development: The Hizmet Movement in Comparative Perspective”

University of Turin, Turin (Italy), 10-11 December 2015

Transnational religious actors, and civil society faith-based movements are a well-established reality of the contemporary world, which is however still understudied especially at the comparative level. Only recently, with the rise of transnational radical Islam, have religious actors started to be regarded as influencing the international and global systems, sparking a significant scholarly production. As a consequence, much of the recent literature in this sub-field has focused on pro-conflict radical and terrorist networks. However, in today’s Europe there are notable cases of transnational faith-based movements which are engaged in education and dialogue, as well as in the economic field, with proposals for interesting new entrepreneurial models merging free-trade principles and social/moral concerns. This conference aims at contributing to a better comprehension of this phenomenon.

Its first day will focus on a relevant example of dialogue-oriented group: the Hizmet movement, inspired by the Turkish preacher Fethullah Gülen, which is portrayed by many as an example of modern, ‘enlightened’ Islam, oriented towards dialogue and co-operation rather than conflict. In recent years the movement has been the focus of extensive international scholarship – both appreciative and critical – dealing with its founder and his teachings, its schools in Turkey and abroad, its relations with Turkish politics and society and the role of women therein. Although many interesting works exist about its development in countries other than Turkey, so far few coherent efforts have been made to understand its development at the transnational level. This is true particularly in relation to comparative works which can highlight the common points and the differences between the movement and other religious groups, either within Islam or belonging to other religious traditions. This conference aims at filling that gap by including papers addressing the Hizmet movement in its transnational perspective: either by analysing its activities, development and institutionalisation in different countries, or by comparing it to other dialogue-oriented religious movements. Different disciplinary perspectives, from political science to sociology, anthropology and law, as well as different methodological perspectives, are welcome.

The second day of the conference will address more broadly the field of contemporary religious movements by focusing on the economic and entrepreneurial activities carried out by faith-based groups and the economic models which inspired them. The above-mentioned Hizmet movement is an example of a religious movement successfully engaged in several entrepreneurial activities, particularly in the education and media fields. However, religion-related entrepreneurship is widespread also in the Christian world, as shown for example by the Focolare movement, which inspired the ‘communion’ or ‘civil’ economy, marked by a strong solidaristic orientation within the free-market economy. Moreover, some ‘new’ religious movements which are not part of ‘traditional’ religions also propose interesting entrepreneurial activities in a neo-communitarian perspective strongly marked by spiritual values. This section of the conference welcomes contributions about the relationship between religious movements and economy, both through single-case studies and broader comparative and theoretical works.

The conference is funded by the University of Turin and the Compagnia di SanPaoloFoundation, and co-sponsored by the ‘Religion and Politics’ standing group of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), the IPSA RC43 ‘Religion and Politics’ Research Group and the Istituto Tevere based in Rome. It will take place on 10-11 December 2015 and will be hosted by the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society of the University of Turin (Italy) at the Luigi Einaudi Campus (CLE).

Prospective paper givers can send a proposal of up to 250 words, as well as any enquiry, to the scientific coordinator of the conference, Dr. Luca Ozzano, at the address:luca.ozzano@unito.it, and to the organization assistant, Dr. Chiara Maritato, at the address:chiara.maritato@unito.it.

The deadline for paper proposals is 15 September 2015.

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