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.

Central conference questions include:

What social, cultural, political, economic factors intersect in the places of these encounters that either promote or erode sociability?

Where are the places in global cities that these encounters take place, and how have their boundaries changed in light of recent urban transformations?

How have religious groups, whose boundaries are shifting, either contributed to the creation of these places or somehow played a role in their contraction?

What are the roles of states and transnational religious groups in cultivating conditions in which citizens learn to valorize difference?

And how do these empirical studies of places and place-making then affect our academic models of “religious pluralism”?

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).

Successful applicants will be notified by 22 November 2010 and will be required to send in a completed draft paper (5,000 - 8,000 words) by 4 April 2011.

Based on the quality of proposals and availability of funds, partial or full funding will be granted to successful applicants. Funding will only cover air travel to Singapore by the most economical means and lodging for the duration of the conference.

CONTACT DETAILS

Workshop Convenors

Dr Chiara FORMICHI (aricf@nus.edu.sg)
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Dr Juliana FINUCANE (arijkf@nus.edu.sg)
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

Secretariat

Miss Alyson ROZELLS
Asia Research Institute,
National University of Singapore
#10-01 Tower Block,
469A Bukit Timah Road, Singapore 259770
Email: alysonrozells@nus.edu.sg
Tel: (65) 6516 8787
Fax: (65) 6779 1428