Call For Papers - Placing Religious Pluralism in Asian Global Cities

Venue : 5 May 2011 - 6 May 2011

Venue : ARI Seminar Room

Venue : Tower Block Level 10, 469A Bukit Timah Road

Venue : National University of Singapore @ BTC
Organisers:       Dr FORMICHI Chiara
Organisers:       Dr FINUCANE Juliana

(DEADLINE: 31 OCTOBER 2010)

The rapid urbanization of Asia is one of many recent changes faced by religious groups that struggle to make a place for themselves and get along with others in increasingly crowded public spaces. The acceleration of global flows and the increasingly transnational dimensions of many religious groups – phenomena that have been ongoing for centuries - create new contexts of religious hyper-diversity, especially in cities, where many of these global processes are articulated and contested. Similarly, Asian cities have undergone rapid change in recent years. Some observers have bemoaned the loss of spaces of unscripted sociability from cities increasingly organized along the profit-driven motives of late capitalism. Others have celebrated the promise of conviviality extended by these cities to their increasingly diverse citizenry through the creation of new urban spaces marked by cosmopolitan attitudes about difference. As the debate about the social and cultural effects of these urban transformations grows ever more polarized, this workshop will offer focused and empirically grounded studies of religious conviviality in these emerging and/or disappearing urban spaces. The workshop focuses in particular on the places of everyday religious diversity in Asian cities in order to explore how religious groups have confronted these new situations of religious diversity. We are particularly interested in exploring the conditions under which active religious pluralism emerges (or not) from material contexts of diversity in existing and emerging global cities. Contributions addressing these dynamics from a historical perspective are welcome.

This workshop takes a critical approach to the concepts of “religious pluralism” and “the global city,” arguing that both are value-laden normative constructs that illuminate aspirations more often than realities. As a starting point, we follow Michael Peletz’s description of pluralism as not simply the existence of diversity, but diversity that is accorded legitimacy. As such, in our examination of the spaces of religious pluralism in global cities (or absence thereof), we seek in particular to examine the quality of relations that emerge in encounters in these urban places among people of different religious traditions. We take a broad view of “place,” understanding place not just to suggest settings and material places, but also imagined places, private places, and itineraries through place.

SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
Paper proposals should include a title, an abstract (250 words maximum) and a brief personal biography of 150 words by 31 October 2010.
Please submit and address all applications and enquiries to Dr Chiara Formichi (aricf@nus.edu.sg).
Click here for the Abstract Proposal Form.

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