Religion, Justice, and Social Action
BSA Sociology of Religion Annual Conference
8-10 July 2024
University of Northumbria, Newcastle, UK
Call for Papers
After the success of our 2023 conference in Bristol, we are delighted to announce the 2024 SocRel Annual Conference. We will gather at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle and we look forward to once again reconnecting with old friends and welcoming new ones. The theme for 2024 is Religion, Justice, and Social Action.
Religion is embedded in forms of justice and social action. Driven by teachings, philosophical ideals, or socialized norms, religion can galvanize change, limit social and political freedoms, and serve the suffering. Religion, when intertwined with justice and social action, can be observed in the organization of events and activities, the participation in protests, marches and sit-ins, the sharing of information among local and global communities, and in the bringing of individuals and groups together to provide food, shelter, care, connection, and subsistence. Yet religious movements can also act as a barrier to social and ethical progress, hindering justice, obstructing action, and delegitimising dissent, discouraging followers – and seeking to actively stop others – from enabling change. Religion can operate a mechanism for transformation and a means of bolstering the status quo, with some movements jostling for influence at the heart of institutions while others seek to build new social structures set apart from the world according to their own frames of justice. As society has experienced and witnessed the pandemic, the cost-of-living and climate crises, and government decisions on war and violence, how have religion, justice and social action converged to bring about change and alternate responses? This conference invites papers that explore these dynamics, and religions’ role in creating and hindering opportunities for response and action as well as the critiques they conjure.
We invite papers that address (but are not limited to) the following areas:
- Care and action: motivations, emotions, and ethics
- Power, abuse, and conflict
- Gender, race, sexuality, class, disability: intersectional considerations
- Environmental emergencies
- Peace, resolution and reconciliation
- Activisms: individual and collective
- Social movements and forces
- Digital forms and responses
- Arts and alternative forms of resistance
- Papers on other topics in the sociology of religion
In looking to build on the success of last year we encourage submissions across a range of formats. In addition to traditional oral papers (of 20 minutes each, with an additional 10 minutes for questions), we would like to receive proposals for alternative formats such as but not limited to:
- Roundtable and panel discussions
- Workshops
- Sessions that discuss published work
- Short presentations (10-minute paper, 5-minute questions)
- Posters
We will also be running a stream specifically for papers by post-graduate researchers, early career researchers, and those presenting at a conference for the first time. There will be an option available on the submission form for those who wish to be considered for this stream, but those within this group who prefer to submit papers in the conventional way are also welcome to do so.
Please submit your abstracts of 250 words and a short biographical note (not more than 100 words) no later than 9 February 2024 to be considered.
We will notify you if your abstract is accepted, by 22 March 2024.
Registration
Registration opens in January 2024.
Bursaries
Bursaries will be available for postgraduates, early career researchers, and academics on precarious contracts.
SocRel Committee
Professor Mathew Guest (Chair); Dr Dawn Llewellyn and Dr Sonya Sharma (Co-Convenors), Dr Rob Barward-Symmons (Events Officer), Dr Isabella Kasselstrand (Communications Officer), Dr Saleema Burney (Membership Officer), Dr Renasha Khan, Dr Ruth Sheldon, and Dr Lois Lee (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Officers), Lucy Potter (Postgraduate and Early Career Scholar Liaison Officer).