Call for Papers

Date: July 4-7, 2017

Venue: University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

Organized by: International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR)

Submission Deadline: January 10, 2017

Religion’s role in conflict has been the subject of recent media and academic scrutiny, while religion’s part in peace building has received comparatively less attention. This conference analyzes the multiple ways in which religion may contribute to fostering cooperation and conflict in diverse societies. Religion can be a source of tension and conflict just as it can be a resource for resolving societal tensions. And cooperation and conflict on a societal level may have important impacts on the emergence or diminishing of religious diversity and vitality.

Some of the questions examined at the conference are:

• What different kinds of influence can religion (religious ideology, religious groups, individual religiosity, and lived religion) have on the creation or resolution of societal tensions and conflicts? Under what political/economic conditions are such influences to be observed?
• How and under what conditions does religion intersect with other factors (e.g. ethnicity, gender, politics, social structure, and social closure) in creating or resolving such tensions and conflicts?
• What are the specific potentials of religion for the furthering of cooperation and peace in society and under what conditions may such potentials be activated?
• What different types of influence can religious diversity have under different conditions on the creation of tension and conflict or the cooperation and peace?
• How does religious diversity intersect with other factors in its influence on cooperation or conflict under different conditions?
• How, and under what conditions, can the state, politics, communities and law govern tensions in religiously diverse societies?
• What is the relationship between religious cooperation/conflict and religious vitality under different societal conditions?
• How do various religions interact with democratic ways of political participation, in secular or non-secular arenas, within diverse societies?
• Do different ways of emergence of religious and cultural diversity (e.g. migration, globalization, post-colonial state formation) correlate with different types of conflict/cooperation between religions?

Thematic Sessions:

• Religiosity: Analysis of international and national quantitative surveys
• Reshaping the secular in religious super diverse societies
• Conversion and socio-political commitment
• Diversity within Non-Religion
• Turning «green»: When religious actors get involved in sustainability agendas
• Homosexuality and religion
• Global Flows of Contemporary Buddhism
• Religious Diversity: Between the Majority Perceptions and Strategies of Religious Groups
• Religion and non-religion across generations
• Religious and Cultural Syncretism, Interpenetration, Fundamentalism, Intolerance, and Conflict in Brazil, France and Elsewhere: Comparative Views
• …

Keynote speakers

• Valérie Amiraux, University of Montreal
• José Casanova, Georgetown University
• Mark Chaves, Duke University
• Lily Kong, National University of Singapore

To submit your paper, please use the online form on the ISSR website. The proposal should be up to 250 words (title and abstract) and it should be only in one language – English or French – in which you would like to present your paper. Please note that you can submit only one paper proposal. The deadline for submitting paper proposals is 10 January 2017.

Conference Website: http://wp.unil.ch/issr2017conference/