CALL FOR PAPERS – Salvage and Salvation: Religion, Disaster Relief, and Reconstruction in Asia.

Dates: 22 (Thursday) and 23 (Friday) November 2012
Venue: Asia Research Institute, Seminar Room, Tower Block Level 10, 469A Bukit Timah Road, National University of Singapore, Bukit Timah Campus
Organisers: Dr Philip Fountain and Dr Levi McLaughlin

What does it mean to offer salvation in the midst of catastrophe? What dynamics are in play at the intersection of religion and disaster relief in Asia? Over the past few years, Asia has witnessed frequent massive  and high profile disasters, notably the Indian Ocean tsunami (2004), the Kashmir earthquake (2005), Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (2008), the Pakistan floods of 2010, and most recently the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters in northeast Japan. In the wake of these tragedies – and the numerous smaller-scale disasters that also afflict the region – religious organizations have played pivotal roles in disaster response
initiatives. Millions of relief workers and billions of dollars in aid have been mobilized through their networks. However, despite having a profound impact on the lives of disaster victims, these initiatives have gone largely under-reported, and there has been no comprehensive attempt to present research on religion and relief in contemporary Asia.
‘Salvage and Salvation’ will be the first interdisciplinary conference to bring together researchers, humanitarian workers, and policy makers to address this theme.

Analysis of religion and disaster relief introduces practical and theoretical concerns. Understanding the full ramifications of disaster
requires attention to specific religions involved in recovery and the different positions they assume. Additionally, it cannot be presumed that Asian states are religiously neutral.  Disasters and relief efforts open new forms of communality among affected populations, thereby altering religion and politics and inspiring novel social and spiritual trajectories.  Humanitarian actors and grassroots mobilizations are also deeply implicated in these shifts.  Even self-consciously secular humanitarian organizations inevitably engage with the religious realities they encounter in their disaster responses through varying strategies of collaboration, accommodation, or exclusion of different religious activities. A region-wide comparative approach to disaster and recovery should be concerned with the broadest possible spectrum of what ‘salvation’ may comprise, whether associated with the state or non-governmental actors or whether designated ‘religious’ or ‘secular.’

We are seeking paper presentation proposals that will address the following topics (and related themes) as they relate to the Asian region:

* Analysis of the types of humanitarian work undertaken by Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Muslim, and other religious groups in response to disasters, including rescue operations, medical and post-traumatic care, fundraising, reconstruction, mitigation, proselytizing, spiritual counseling, and other interventions

* Doctrinal, ritual, clerical, and/or institutional innovations occasioned by religious disaster responses

* Imaginations and perceptions of religion by state actors and humanitarian organizations

* Collaborations between religious organizations, state actors, humanitarian organizations, and community groups in disaster response initiatives

* Emerging transnational networks forged between religious groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), donor organizations, and other actors engaged in disaster responses

* Reconfigurations of local communities following religious and/or secular disaster relief initiatives

* Contrasting visions of ‘salvation’ offered in response to disasters and the ramifications of these visions

Papers from any field in the humanities or social sciences that employ any type of methodology are welcome. We are particularly interested in submissions that employ data from fieldwork. Analytical papers by development practitioners or representatives of religious institutions/groups drawing on field experience relevant to this topic are also encouraged.

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS

Paper proposals must be for original, previously unpublished work.
Selected papers from the conference proceedings will be compiled for an edited volume. Proposals should include a title, abstract (250-300 words), and a brief personal biography (150 words). For more detailed guidelines or questions regarding specific paper proposals, and for obtaining a Paper Proposal Form, please contact the conference organizers.

Please submit all applications to Dr Philip Fountain (aripmf@nus.edu.sg) by 15 May 2012.

Successful applicants will be notified by 15 June 2012 and will be required to send a draft paper (5,000-8,000 words) by 15
October 2012.
Travel and accommodation support is available from the Asia Research Institute, depending on need and availability of funds.

CONFERENCE CONVENORS
Dr Philip FOUNTAIN, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Email: aripmf@nus.edu.sg

Dr Levi MCLAUGHLIN, North Carolina State University. Email: lmclaug2@ncsu.edu

SECRETARIAT

Ms. Valerie Yeo, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Email: valerie.yeo@nus.edu.sg
_______________________________________________

CFP: “Trans-” States in Islamic Education: Crossing, Transcending, and Transgressing Boundaries
Organizer: Ron Lukens-Bull (University of North Florida), Ronald.lukens-bull@fulbrightmail.org

Looking for papers which will examine Islamic Education in relationship to the 2012 AAA theme Borders and Crossings.  Engagement with the theme can quite literally look at Islamic education in non-Muslim majority society. More metaphorical or
theoretical treatments of borders and crossings will be most welcome. Papers looking at transgressive moments in Islamic education, for example, might examine the impact of transgressive behavior of teachers and the response of the community, such as when Aa Gym’s Islamic self-help empire in Indonesia faltered after his poorly recieved polygynous second marriage. Or when faculty at Islamic universities in their attempt to work outside narrowly defined boundaries of their field are accused of apostasy.  Or the border crossing might be more at the level of ideoscapes and a look at how Islamic Education in West Africa has been impacted by the “Arab Spring.”  It would be particularly interesting  if the “trans-” states, to use my coined term, examined one of the following: trance states in the context of Islamic Education, transgendered persons in Islamic Education.

Ronald Lukens-Bull, PhD
Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of North Florida

The SISP (Italian Political Science Society) standing group Religion and Politics organises three panels for the annual SISP conference (13 – 15 September 2012, University of Roma tre), info: http://www.sisp.it/convegno

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE
In order to be taken into consideration, proposals (that can be submitted either in English or in Italian) should include name, institutional affiliation and contacts of the proponent as well as a working title and a short abstract of up to 250 words.
Proposals must be sent to panel chairs by May 1st, 2012. A decision about which contributions to include in the panel will be made by May 28th, 2012 at the latest.

PANELS

1.  Transnational Religious Actors
Chairs: Valter Coralluzzo
(valter.coralluzzo@libero.it) e Luca Ozzano (luca.ozzano@unito.it)
Section: Relazioni internazionali
Since the early 1970s, when Keohane and Nye’s early works on the theme were published, transnational actors are included in international relations theory and debates. However, the discipline has been slow to acknowledge even the existence of religious actors in transnational perspective. Only very recently, with Jeffrey Haynes and Giorgio Shani’s works, their features have been outlined. However, a comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon is still lacking. Yet, transnational religious actors have been for decades relevant players in international scenarios, and their influence is steadily growing. On the one hand, ancient and established religious organizations such as the Catholic Church are increasing their transnational activities and identity. Moreover, while transnational proselytizing activities have been running for decades throughout the world, a growing number of former domestic religious actors, as well as newly established groups, are increasingly active at the transnational level in fields such as welfare, media, education, and even business. Such activities are often facilitated by the presence in many countries of diaspora and converts communities supporting locally the activities of transnational networks. All these phenomena also have a growing impact on politics, at both the domestic and the international level. The panel welcomes theoretical papers on the subject, as well as comparative works and single-case studies, written in English and Italian.

2. The religious factor in contemporary political movements
Chairs: Alberta Giorgi (albertagiorgi@ces.uc.pt) e Emanuele Polizzi (emanuele.polizzi@unimib.it)
Section: Partecipazione e Movimenti Sociali
Contemporary political arenas show a growing presence of social movements as crucial political actors, either in connection with or in opposition to political parties – which suffer from a wide criticism and distrust, in Italy as well as abroad. Both the identity and the ideological roots of these movements show a high degree of internal diversity and variety. Specifically, religiously inspired movements appear to have an increasingly important role in political campaigns. This happened, for instance, in Arab Spring movements – which resulted in a wide consensus for Islamic political actors, but also in the Italian context, where religious associations have been involved in the ‘Public Water’ and ‘Anti-nuclear’ movements. More broadly, religion is an important element for political identity and organization. It appears to be the case in Italy, for instance, where a religiously inspired political area is gathering consensus after the end of Berlusconi hegemony, and local religious leaders and organizations have a high political weight and influence in local political arenas, such as in Lombardia and in Rome. It appears to be the case in several other countries, such as for US religious lobbies, Church-related movements in Spain and Portugal, and the issue about the recognition
of religions in nowadays Hungary.
The panel invites papers on the following topics:
– forms of political activism and participation of religious movements and organizations;
– relations between local government and religious actors in the field of civic engagement;
– relations between political and religious identity of local activists.
Comparative studies are welcome, as well as single-case studies and theoretical analyses. Researchers working in this field, including PhD students are invited to submit their research papers.

3. Religion and Elections
Chairs: Alberta Giorgi (albertagiorgi@ces.uc.pt) e Luca Ozzano (luca.ozzano@unito.it)
Section: Elezioni e comportamento di voto
Although their real influence is hard to define, and easily changes according to contexts and periods, religion and religiosity are significant factors in the electoral processes of many democratic countries. Such influence can take place both at the institutional and at the value level. At the institutional level, we must first mention religiously oriented parties, which are allowed to participate in most democratic systems and sometimes manage to be win elections and form governments (as for example in the case of the Christian democratic parties in Western Europe, the AKP in Turkey, the BJP in India, etc.). Even non explicitly religiously oriented
parties can have strong religious wings, as in the case of the Republican party in the US. Moreover, they can be influenced by other religious actors, such as churches and other kind of confessional movements and groups, especially if they have many followers in the parties’ constituency. At the values level, religion can influence elections, and particularly campaigns, when parties try to court the religious constituency by proposing issues connected to some kind of religious values. Religious values can therefore contribute to orient the vote of particular segments of the population. In contemporary societies, the religious factor has been gaining importance in several contexts – as it is occurring in US Republican primaries, and in North Africa and Middle East, where, after the Arab spring, religiously oriented parties have been gaining electoral support.
The panel will explore these issues, through both theoretical and empirical papers. We invite both comparative and single-case studies, written in English or Italian. Paper proposals should be around 250 words. Researchers working in this field, including doctoral level students are invited to submit their research papers, possibly at an advanced stage of elaboration. Papers are expected to be relevant and pertinent to the workshops’ themes, and rigorously engaged with literature and methodology.

Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network

Nonreligion and the Secular: New Horizons for Multidisciplinary Research

Call for Papers| 4-6 July 2012, Goldsmiths, University of London

Conveners: Lois Lee (ll317@cam.ac.uk), Stacey Gutkowski (stacey.gutkowski@kcl.ac.uk), and Stephen Bullivant (stephen.bullivant@smuc.ac.uk)

Conference Coordinator: Katie Aston (k.aston@gold.ac.uk)

Following decades of neglect, the academic study of nonreligion has grown rapidly in the past five years. The primary aim of this conference is to bring together scholars across a range of academic disciplines (sociology, anthropology, theology, political science, psychology, history, international relations, area studies) to begin to untangle the confused and individually contested concepts of nonreligion and the secular. Is nonreligion a subcategory of the secular or vice versa? How do the two terms structure one another? What are the practical and theoretical implications of the concepts, such as they are and/or in alternative formulations? The aim of this international conference is to contribute to addressing this lacuna. While discussions of nonreligion and the secular have been running largely in parallel, they are potentially mutually enriching topics with significant bearing outside of the academy. This conference will consolidate the achievements already made over the past five years by nonreligion scholars and forge new, multidisciplinary dialogue between these researchers and those primarily working with the concept of the secular. This conference will bring together a range of internationally renowned scholars, including keynote speakers Gracie Davie (Exeter), Callum Brown (Dundee), Monika Wohlrab-Sahr (Leipzig), and Humeira Iqtidar (King’s College London).

The conference engages with a historical moment in which forms of religion and nonreligion have increasingly asserted themselves in the public sphere, in non-Western as well as Western settings. In the case of radical Islamism and New Atheism, such assertions have had powerful, sometimes inflammatory and divisive affect. This urgent wider social and political context demonstrates the urgency of a reasoned, global, scholarly contribution, aimed at further theorising and conceptualising nonreligion and the secular, individually and in relation to each other.

This conference will interrogate three dimensions and welcomes both empirically- and theoretically-based paper contributions which address the following:

1) Nonreligion as a concept in its own right What is meant by the term “nonreligion”? How does it manifest itself in the lives of individuals and in collective social activity and identity? Is it the most appropriate term to encompass a range of phenomena and where may its parameters lie? What is the relationship between nonreligion and modernity? Is nonreligion a resonant category outside of Western contexts?

2) The nonreligious in relation to notions of the secular How do nonreligion and the secular mutually constitute one another? Under what historical social and political conditions did the rise of secularism and secularity facilitate the appearance of the nonreligious? Does the emergence of the nonreligious indicate a new phase of modernity?

3) The implications of nonreligion research for pressing social and political issues associated with discussions of the secular What bearing does nonreligiosity have on social, political and legal questions about social cohesion and multiculturalism? To what extent do the “harder” forms on nonreligion breed intolerance and fundamentalism? What are the implications of nonreligion for the possibility of democratic consensus and governance? To what extent do secular political landscapes outside of the West involve or even require the presence of nonreligious phenomena?

Publication Outcome: We are planning to publish a selection of the papers presented at the conference in an edited volume.

The deadline for abstract submission (250 words max) is 27 April 2012. Please send your abstract together with a short biographical note to Katie Aston at k.aston@gold.ac.uk

ESA cordially invite to participate in the Call for Papers!
The submission of abstracts and online registration has started!

Transformations of the Sacred in Europe and Beyond
ESA Mid-term Conference: Research Network 34 – Sociology of Religion University of Potsdam, Germany, 3-5 September 2012 in cooperation with the German Section for the Sociology of Religion in the DGS

You will find the registration form on:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/esa-religion/abstractsandregistration.html

Plenary Speakers:
Schirin Amir-Moazami, Institute for Islamic Studies, Free University of Berlin
Hubert Knoblauch, Institute for Sociology, Technical University of Berlin
Gordon Lynch, Religious Studies School of European Culture and Languages, University of Kent
Eva-Maria Schrage, Graduate School “Religion and Politics in the Cultures of Pre-modernity and Modernity”, University of Münster

Panel: Religions on the Move/Changes in Religious Cultures
Inger Furseth, Director of the Nordic Research Program NOREL, Oslo
Dorota Hall, Ass. Professor at the Dep. of Religious Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
Volkhard Krech, Director of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions and speaker of the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) at the University of Bochum
Siniša Zrinščak, Department of Social Work, University of Zagreb

The thesis of secularization, once sheer uncontested in the social sciences, is increasingly under fire. Secularization is nowadays often deconstructed as an ideology or mere wish dream that is intimately connected to the rationalist ambitions of modern Enlightenment. Such alleged blurring of morality and science, of what ‘is’ and what ‘ought’, informing sociological analysis obviously
obscures clear sight on recent developments in the Western world. Countless empirical and theoretical studies convincingly demonstrate that religion is alive and well in Europe and beyond. Particularly after the attacks of 9/11 in 2001, religious identities
have become salient in a situation of cultural polarization and religious pluralization. Moreover, we are witnessing a trend towards ‘believing without belonging’ (Davie, 1994) and – particularly in those European countries that are most secular – a shift from organized religion to ‘spiritualities of life’ (e.g., Heelas and Woodhead, 2005), paganism and ‘popular religion’ (Knoblauch, 2009). And although the thesis of secularization has always been highly problematic from a non-European or global perspective, the rapid globalization of Islam and the Evangelical upsurge – especially in Africa, Latin America and East Asia – fly in the face of the long-held expectation that religion is doomed to be a marginal or socially insignificant phenomenon. Evidently, then, the focus of sociological analysis has shifted over the last decades from religious decline to religious change. More than that: it is theorized that we are living in a “postsecular society” (Habermas, 2005) where religion is re-vitalized, de-privatized and increasingly influences politics, voting behavior, matters of the state and ethical debates in the public domain (e.g., Casanova, 1994). Motivated by such observations, the mid-term conference calls for papers addressing changes in the field of religion and, more in particular, transformations of the sacred in Europe and beyond.

Particularly we welcome studies covering the following topics:
• Studies on how and why conceptions of the sacred, religious beliefs, doctrines, rituals and organizations of long-standing religious traditions – such as Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Hinduism – transform under the influence of processes of globalization, individualization, mediatization as well as changing gender relations.
• Studies dealing with trends of believing without belonging, i.e. non-institutionalized beliefs, personal ‘bricolage’ and privatized conceptions of the sacred outside the Churches, Chapels and Mosques. Encouraged are also studies addressing new, more informal ways of ‘belonging’, religious communication and collective effervescence, i.e. in loose social networks, discussion groups or virtual communities on the internet.
• Studies covering popular religion and post-traditional spirituality, i.e., New Age, esotericism, paganism, occultism, discussing for instance an epistemological turn from belief to experience and emotion; a shifting emphasis from transcendence to immanence; from seriousness to playfulness; or a transition from dualism to monism.
• Studies dealing with implicit religion, i.e. addressing a re-location of the sacred to seemingly secular domains in society such as self-identity, sports, modern science and technology. This avenue of research may also include the place and meaning of the sacred
(i.e., religious narratives, symbols and images) in popular media texts – in novels, films, series on television or computer games.

These topics are rough guidelines; papers dealing with religious change and the transformation of the sacred in Europe and beyond other than these outlined above are also very welcome.
Furthermore we invite PhD and post-doc candidates to contribute to a poster session, including work in progress; the best poster will get a – small, but nice – prize.
For further information, dates & deadlines, please see:
http://www.uni-potsdam.de/esa-religion/index.html

Call for Papers
Religion on the Move
How Motion and Migration influence Religion

10th Conference of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion
Szeged, Hungary 12-14 September, 2012

In many ways movement is an important aspect of religion and spirituality. Not only has the significance of motion within the practice of religion and rituality increased (Coleman & Eade 2004), but also, through the movement and migration of people all over the world, religions and religious practices are relocating and changing (Jenkins 2007).
Movement is significant for the practice of many religions. It seems that motion has been gaining in importance and that the performative expression and execution of religious practice play a stronger part than they used to do. There might be related to the more participative role of believers in religion and rituality and the enhanced relevance of individuals ‘doing’ religion. The popularity of walking the many pilgrim ways through Europe is an example of that trend, while other expressions of movement like dancing, meditations, processions and other rituals also seem to be more in focus.
A second strand of movement is connected to migration for, by moving, people bring faiths and religious practices to other places in the world where they were not previously known or practised. Nowadays, through mass migrations, refugees, displacements because of war and other translocations, religions and beliefs can expand both spatially and quantitatively. These are processes in which the faiths which are moving are being transformed, and the religion(s) of the areas in which people and their religion are newly settled are likewise affected (examples include Islam in Europe and the new Christians from Africa in Europe). Sometimes beliefs are appropriated through tourism or by ‘spiritual seekers’; aspects of Eastern religion and esoterism have been imported to Western society. In that regard the Internet has become a migratative instrument, in its capacity of ‘posting’ religion all over the globe and into people’s homes, regardless of what religion is practised there. The extension of religion through (digital) migration has an impact on social, cultural and political contexts (Woodhead et al. 2002). The movement of religion might lead to an adaptation to new circumstances, to inculturation, but also potentially to a transformation in the religious constituents of the local culture as well. Sometimes there is openness and religion finds new host communities. Evangelical, Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal churches have spread across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe (Coleman 2007) and so have Afro-American religions, as Candomblé, Umbanda, or Santeria cubana (Capone 2004; Saraiva 2010). Sometimes the members of the host country become involved in such new practices, but movement may also lead to segregation within host communities and contested situations.

Papers connected to these two research strands on movement and religion are welcomed; one could for example think of the following topics:
•       The influence of migration on religion
•       Movement as constituative element in religion and rituality
•       Effects of globalisation and transnationalism on religion
•       Changes in religion through digital movement, via the Internet.
•       Movement and spatiality related to the practice of religion

Format: the conference takes place over two days, followed by an excursion on the third day. Paper presentations are limited to 20 minutes each, followed by ten minutes of discussion. In total 20 paper presenters will be selected. Colleagues who do not present a paper are welcome to participate in the conference and its discussions. A business meeting of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion will be held during the conference.

Organizers: the conference is organized by the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Szeged together with the Bálint Sándor Institute for Research on Religion and the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF).

Venue: University of Szeged and Gál Ferenc Theological College of Szeged

Fee: the conference fee is 60 €, including conference materials, reception, coffee, brunch, excursion.
Participants are responsible for travel and accommodation; there is no funding for expenses available.

Application: submit an abstract of your paper of maximum 300 words, together with your name, position, and institutional affiliation to Dr. István Povedák povedak@yahoo.com by March 15, 2012. The selection of the papers will be done in collaboration with the Board of the SIEF Working Group on Ethnology of Religion. The final selection will be communicated by April 1, 2012.

Contacts: povedak@yahoo.com; peter.jan.margry@meertens.knaw.nl