Sociologists from around the globe debate about politics and religion

05/07/2019

The UAB Centre for the Sociology of Religion (ISOR) organises jointly with the UB GRECS the 35th world conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion, taking place from 9 to 12 July and is entitled "The Politics of Religion and Spirituality". It brings together over 500 researchers from different universities around the world and will be taking place in Barcelona, at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània and the UB Faculty of Geography and History.

The conference will focus on the great social and political challenges societies face today in the areas of religion and spirituality, with plenary sessions in which some of the most renowned experts in this academic field will participate. With regard tot he relation between politics and religion, conferences will be offered by Effie Fokas, researcher at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy and at the London School of Economics (who will speak on the religious effects the European Human Rights Court has) and Joan Marc Vaggione, researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, Argentina (who will speak on religious activism in Latin America).

Another theme, the emergence of new forms of discrimination, will be discussed by Nadia Fadil, researcher at KU Leuven, Belgium, who conducted an analysis of the impact of security policies on the Muslim population of Belgium and in Europe in general. Moreover, on 10 July there will be a round table on Islamophobia with experts from the UB, the UAB, the University of Granada and the Barcelona City Council. Several parallel sessions will also be discussing issues related to the question of gender and religion and the connection between new spiritualities and ecologism.

This conference is organised locally and jointly by the researh groups ISOR-UAB (specialising in resaerch into religions, identities and public management of diversity) and GRECS-UB (focused particularly on cultural, urban and religious anthropology). The groups are respectively directed by Professor Maria del Mar Griera and Professor Manuel Delgado. The International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR) is an international organisation which brings together the majority of social scientists working on religion-related subjects: the emergence of a new religious plurality, the increase in religious-based discriminations such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, visibility of new spiritualities and religious movements, etc.

The conference receives the support of the Barcelona City Coucil, the General Direction of Religious Affairs of the Government of Catalonia, the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed), the Catalan Sociology Association (ACS-IEC) and the Faculty of Communication Studies of the Ramon Llull University.

More information: ISSRBCN'19. The Politics of Religion and Spirituality