- Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
- Religion, Globalization, Social Movements, Religion and Politics, Refugees, Human Rights, and 19 moreAsylum seekers, Religion and Climate Change, International Relations, Identity politics, Global Justice, Rosi Braidotti, Political Philosophy, International Politics, Global Citizenship, Activism, Faith Based Organizations, Australia, Statelessness, Political Ideologies, Postsecularism (Sociology), Critical Theory, Democracy, Democratization, and Secularisms and Secularitiesedit
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Major international agencies including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have moved towards partnering with faith-based actors to support displaced persons. Despite this, concerns – and suspicions – remain about... more
Major international agencies including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have moved towards partnering with faith-based actors to support displaced persons. Despite this, concerns – and suspicions – remain about the nature and impact of faith-based responses to displacement, often stemming from negative assumptions about the relationship between religion and gender. Based on her policy brief launched at the UN Refugee Summit in September, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh outlines how we can overcome these often flawed assumptions.
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Religious entities play significant roles in the current forced migration crisis. These roles include innovative and experience based ideas to address flawed aspects of the humanitarian system, overall advocacy on behalf of refugees and... more
Religious entities play significant roles in the current forced migration crisis. These roles include innovative and experience based ideas to address flawed aspects of the humanitarian system, overall advocacy on behalf of refugees and migrants based on humanitarian and spiritual principles, direct action in refugee camps and communities, action in communities that refugees and migrants flee, and support for refugee integration in host countries, including explicit efforts to promote social cohesion and address trauma. Further, assumptions about religion and the religious identity of refugees and migrants play an influential role in societal and policy debates surrounding the crisis, particularly in relation to security and violent extremism. Broadly, however, religious factors and contributions are poorly understood and insufficiently taken into account by policy makers and in think tank analyses of these (among other) issues. In each area of measures to increase religious engagem...
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This article analyses the public significance of The Passion—a televised retelling of the Passion of Jesus, featuring pop songs and celebrities in the Dutch public sphere. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors demonstrate how... more
This article analyses the public significance of The Passion—a televised retelling of the Passion of Jesus, featuring pop songs and celebrities in the Dutch public sphere. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the authors demonstrate how performances like The Passion offer spaces in which the Dutch can reflect publicly on important identity issues, such as the role of Christian heritage in a supposedly secular age. The article contributes to deeper knowledge of how Dutch late-modern society deals with its secular self-understanding.
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Reflectivist scholarship in international relations (IR) has recently witnessed two significant ‘turns’ in critique and theorizing – the aesthetic turn and the postsecular turn.11On the aesthetic t...
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The current refugee crisis sweeping Europe, and much of the world, closely intersects with largely neglected questions of religion. Moving beyond discussions of religious differences, what can we learn about the interaction between... more
The current refugee crisis sweeping Europe, and much of the world, closely intersects with largely neglected questions of religion. Moving beyond discussions of religious differences, what can we learn about the interaction between religion and migration? Do faith-based organisations play a role within the refugee regime? How do religious traditions and perspectives challenge and inform current practices and policies towards refugees? This volume gathers together expertise from academics and practitioners, as well as migrant voices, in order to investigate these interconnections. It shows that reconsidering our understanding and approaches to both could generate creative alternative responses to the growing global migration crisis. Beginning with a discussion of the secular/religious divide - and how it shapes dominant policy practices and counter approaches to displacement and migration - the book then goes on to explore and deconstruct the dominant discourse of the Muslim refugee ...
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The growing importance of religious identity in the politics of migration and refugees has led to increasingly harsh immigration policies. Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli argue that the focus needs to shift from religious identity to... more
The growing importance of religious identity in the politics of migration and refugees has led to increasingly harsh immigration policies. Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli argue that the focus needs to shift from religious identity to solidarity with fellow human beings.
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In this chapter we will explore various aspects of contemporary globalization, including some of the normative views that exist in academia and broader public discourse that attempt to shape how we think about globalization and direct how... more
In this chapter we will explore various aspects of contemporary globalization, including some of the normative views that exist in academia and broader public discourse that attempt to shape how we think about globalization and direct how processes of globalization occur. In the first section, we survey some of the main theories and debates about globalization, ranging from those who view globalization as a highly original, unique phenomenon, to those who see nothing new in globalization and still others who doubt the existence of globalization. We then go on to outline some of the key dimensions of globalization. While much popular discourse about globalization focuses on its economic aspects, we highlight that globalization is multi-faceted and impacts numerous areas of global life
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This briefing paper is a distillation of the main points and recommendations that arose during two two-day workshops held in Washington DC in May 2014 and Brussels in June 2014. The workshops, funded by the British Council USA Bridging... more
This briefing paper is a distillation of the main points and recommendations that arose during two two-day workshops held in Washington DC in May 2014 and Brussels in June 2014. The workshops, funded by the British Council USA Bridging Voices program, assembled scholars, policymakers and practitioners focused on issues of asylum, refuge and protection in contemporary global politics and the current and potential future roles of faith and faith actors across the US and Europe.
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For many years, the assumption has been that religion would become less important in European society as modernity advanced and that the rest of the world would eventually follow this same course. Recent events have made this idea more... more
For many years, the assumption has been that religion would become less important in European society as modernity advanced and that the rest of the world would eventually follow this same course. Recent events have made this idea more difficult to maintain. While levels of religious participation and belief have fallen off in Western and Northern European societies, in other parts of the continent and among the ever-growing number of immigrants from the global south, religion remains as important a part of public and private life as ever, if not more so. Furthermore, European secularism appears to be more of a global exception than the rule, as the public influence of religion remains high in the equally ‘developed’ United States. Many of these dynamics have been well documented in contemporary academic fields. But these findings have not yet made their way beyond the confines of academic journals into the policy and practitioner discourses where they could have a profound effect. In order to help remedy this state of affairs, the proposed volume will present recent academic research concerning the role of religion in contemporary European society in a way that is accessible to policymakers, practitioners, and students and scholars of religious studies, politics and international affairs. The volume’s contributions are organized around three main themes: 1) demographics and dynamics; 2) the public sphere; and 3) relevant global issues. Several concise articles that analyze issues of pressing concern will be presented on each theme. Each article will be written by a leading academic contributor and will be based upon well-established findings. Short interviews with policymakers and practitioners that give their takes on the issues and debates will be interspersed throughout. The aim of the different sections is to i) describe what we know about the role of religion in relation to each of these issues and ii) to explain how this is relevant to contemporary European public concerns. Part of the broader goal of the volume as a whole is to promote a more profound level of religious literacy amongst policymakers and practitioners and to contribute to challenging prevalent ideas about the secular nature of the modern public sphere.
In Victor Hugo’s epic novel, Les Miserables, the central character, Jean Valjean, is forever changed by a brief encounter he has with a humble bishop in a remote country village in France. Although time and place differ, Valjean possesses... more
In Victor Hugo’s epic novel, Les Miserables, the central character, Jean Valjean, is forever changed by a brief encounter he has with a humble bishop in a remote country village in France. Although time and place differ, Valjean possesses many of the characteristics and receives similar treatment from political authorities and communities as many asylum seekers and refugees today. Imprisoned for 19 years by an unjust government for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her seven starving children, Valjean is now marked for life. Upon his release from gaol, he travels through France, rejected and despised by all he meets, an experience which, Elie Wiesel has argued, defines the refugee.1 All are suspicious of Valjean and refuse to provide him with food or shelter. Many even fail to recognise that he is a human being, instead calling him a dog.
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Abstract This article reconsiders the political dimensions of religious activity in light of a supposedly emerging post-secular society. I argue that limited understandings of both religion and politics restrict the capacity of scholars... more
Abstract This article reconsiders the political dimensions of religious activity in light of a supposedly emerging post-secular society. I argue that limited understandings of both religion and politics restrict the capacity of scholars and faith-based actors alike to perceive the significant influence that religious actions and rituals can have in the political realm. The article outlines the dimensions of a post-secular society, drawing on the work of Jürgen Habermas, alongside recent critiques of his work by International Relations scholars. It then investigates existing approaches to understanding religion and politics within International Relations, putting forward an alternative framework for analysing the religious and the political in a post-secular society, before turning to an exploration of the activities of faith-based actors in the asylum sector in Australia. The article highlights the ways in which predominantly religious activities, such as prayer, charity and hospitality to the stranger, can have significant political implications, both in the immediate and in the long-term. Scholars, policy makers and faith-based actors themselves need to develop more nuanced understandings of how religious actions take on political meaning, intended and unintended, in order to appreciate the growing influence of faith-based actors in post-secular societies.
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... The idea of global justice has emerged primarily from within cosmopolitan moral theory (O'Neill 2000). Cosmopolitanism has strong connections with liberalism, particularly through the writings of Immanuel Kant... more
... The idea of global justice has emerged primarily from within cosmopolitan moral theory (O'Neill 2000). Cosmopolitanism has strong connections with liberalism, particularly through the writings of Immanuel Kant (Mapel and Nardin 1992). ...
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... in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that every person has the right to seek and to enjoy asylum.21 ... Arboleda and Hoy have argued that establishing a consensual international understanding of the Refugee... more
... in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that every person has the right to seek and to enjoy asylum.21 ... Arboleda and Hoy have argued that establishing a consensual international understanding of the Refugee Convention is the most pressing problem, as it ...
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The right to Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) is a focus of increasing concern in academia and policy. A key disagreement is whether a universally recognized right to FoRB actually exists. This article explores this disagreement by... more
The right to Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) is a focus of increasing concern in academia and policy. A key disagreement is whether a universally recognized right to FoRB actually exists. This article explores this disagreement by considering global, universalist narratives and local, context-specific application of FoRB in India and Indonesia. We argue that the language of FoRB is not universal, but across different cultures, concepts and practices exist—such as honoring the traditions of others and living together in harmony—that are consistent with FoRB. Rather than insist on the language of FoRB, international actors should focus on these already existing practices.
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The right to Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) is a focus of increasing concern in academia and policy. A key disagreement is whether a universally recognized right to FoRB actually exists. This article explores this disagreement by... more
The right to Freedom of Religion of Belief (FoRB) is a focus of increasing concern in academia and policy. A key disagreement is whether a universally recognized right to FoRB actually exists. This article explores this disagreement by considering global, universalist narratives and local, context-specific application of FoRB in India and Indonesia. We argue that the language of FoRB is not universal, but across different cultures, concepts and practices exist—such as honoring the traditions of others and living together in harmony—that are consistent with FoRB. Rather than insist on the language of FoRB, international actors should focus on these already existing practices.
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What has become of secularism following the so-called postsecular turn? As a consequence of the demise of modern twentieth-century secularization theory (as per Peter Berger’s ‘sacred canopy’), we live in an interesting intellectual... more
What has become of secularism following the so-called postsecular turn? As a consequence of the demise of modern twentieth-century secularization theory (as per Peter Berger’s ‘sacred canopy’), we live in an interesting intellectual moment in which the so-called postsecular (understood descriptively rather than theoretically, see, e.g., Habermas 2008; Mavelli and Petito 2012; Wilson 2012; Rosati 2015) coexists with the secular, which in turn has become pluralized and historicized (see, e.g., Taylor 2007; Agrama 2012; Burchardt and Wohlrab-Sahr 2013). On the other hand, if, as Habermas argues, the secularist paradigm has learned to cohabitate with the religious, we also witness the conflictual anti-religious stance of ‘new atheist’ movements, which claim a ‘scientific’ argument for the removal of the religious from the public sphere (see Oustinova-Stjepanovic and Blanes 2015). This cohabitation of the secular and the postsecular is revealed, as the new atheism example above shows, mainly through political dialectical processes (see also Jakobsen and Pellegrini 2008; Sullivan et al. 2015). This in turn makes us, editors of this volume, feel that (1) those political statements overshadow the subjective and inter-subjective dimensions of secularity, making it difficult to pinpoint concrete sites, agents, and objects of expression; and (2) for that same reason, they tend to obscure rather than illuminate the pragmatics and empirical dimensions of secularism. We argue that one such move toward the concrete and the subjective will allow us to know more about the plural, heterogeneous, and processual character of the secular/religious conundrum, and thus move beyond the monolithic, immobilized configurations that often flourish in the public sphere.
Wilson and Mavelli argue that a deeply embedded yet under-theorized relationship between the politics of migration and religion lies at the heart of contemporary migration debates. While processes of secularization emphasize the bounded... more
Wilson and Mavelli argue that a deeply embedded yet under-theorized relationship between the politics of migration and religion lies at the heart of contemporary migration debates. While processes of secularization emphasize the bounded nature of political communities, many of the more progressive religious outlooks which have come to (re)populate the public sphere advocate an ethos of justice and solidarity that transcends national boundaries. This contributes to a contestation over the ways in which responsibility is assigned, conceptualized, assumed, and abjured in contemporary migration politics. Adopting a postsecular lens, Wilson and Mavelli explore the dynamics of this contestation in relation to numerous contemporary examples, including responses to the Mediterranean migration crisis, UNHCR engagement with faith-based actors, and pro-refugee protest movements in Australia.
The purpose of this chapter is to explore these political linkages between trauma, memory and apologies. We do so by highlighting the crucial religious dimensions of apologies. We explore the reasons why public apologies play a... more
The purpose of this chapter is to explore these political linkages between trauma, memory and apologies. We do so by highlighting the crucial religious dimensions of apologies. We explore the reasons why public apologies play a particularly influential role in breaking the vicious cycle that can arise after a major conflict and trauma. We argue that the performative dimensions of apologies are the key to understanding why they play such an influential role in coming to terms with traumatic events. It is not by accident that religious apologies were usually performed as part of services and rituals of atonement. These performative dimensions rendered the act of offering forgiveness far more powerful. It remained enshrined in the memory of those attending the service. And so it can be in politics: an apology is remembered as much by how it is given as by what it contains. It is through its performative dimension that an apology is most likely to become an important collective memory, influencing both collective representations of the conflict and how future generations deal with its political residues.
Research Interests: History, International Relations, Philosophy, Social Sciences, Foreign Policy Analysis, and 12 morePolitical Theory, Religion and Politics, Visual Culture, Politics, Trauma Studies, Ethics and International Relations, Reconciliation, Political Apologies, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, Post-Conflict Reconciliation, Social and Cultural Anthoropology, and Visual Politics
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Apologies play a central role in the process of reconciliation. Societies that experienced a major conflict often struggle to recreate a stable order. The memory of trauma can linger for decades and give rise to new animosities and... more
Apologies play a central role in the process of reconciliation. Societies that experienced a major conflict often struggle to recreate a stable order. The memory of trauma can linger for decades and give rise to new animosities and conflicts. We argue that public apologies play an influential role in breaking this vicious cycle, particularly when the apology contains a symbolic visual dimension. In such cases the act of apology can become an important collective memory itself, influencing political representations of the conflict and thus the manner in which subsequent generations view and engage the issues at stake. We examine several iconic visual apologies. One of them is how the West German chancellor, Willy Brandt, travelled to Poland in 1970 and silently kneeled before the monument marking the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943. This visual apology created international headlines and was much discussed in both Poland and Germany. To this day the photographs of this gesture remain influential, more so perhaps than any verbal repentance of the Holocaust.
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The current refugee crisis sweeping Europe, and much of the world, closely intersects with largely neglected questions of religion. Moving beyond discussions of religious differences, what can we learn about the interaction between... more
The current refugee crisis sweeping Europe, and much of the world, closely intersects with largely neglected questions of religion. Moving beyond discussions of religious differences, what can we learn about the interaction between religion and migration? Do faith-based organisations play a role within the refugee regime? How do religious traditions and perspectives challenge and inform current practices and policies towards refugees? This volume gathers together expertise from academics and practitioners, as well as migrant voices, in order to investigate these interconnections. It shows that reconsidering our understanding and approaches to both could generate creative alternative responses to the growing global migration crisis. Beginning with a discussion of the secular/religious divide - and how it shapes dominant policy practices and counter approaches to displacement and migration - the book then goes on to explore and deconstruct the dominant discourse of the Muslim refugee as a threat to the secular/Christian West. The discussion continues with an exploration of Christian and Islamic traditions of hospitality, showing how they challenge current practices of securitization of migration, and concludes with an investigation of the largely unexplored relation between gender, religion and migration. Bringing together leading and emerging voices from across academia and practice, in the fields of International Relations, migration studies, philosophy, religious studies and gender studies, this volume offers a unique take on one of the most pressing global problems of our time.