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Abstract
This special section of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion explores religious or belief identities on university campuses in different parts of the world. It examines the diversity of ways in which religious or belief identities are experienced, encountered and catered for on higher education campuses. The ten papers that follow interrogate how these identities are ‘lived’ on campus and how these are dealt with in university policy, practice, management and curricula. ‘Violence’, ‘Minoritisation’ and ‘intersectionality’ are useful theories to make sense of the common threads and disconnections across the different Higher Education contexts that feature in this special section and their geographies, politics and religion or belief identities.
According to foundational Islamic texts, motherhood is a key aspect of women’s diverse social roles; however some Muslim religious commentaries position motherhood as the only aspect of women’s contributions to society. The everyday mothering experiences of Muslim women remain absent from these discussions. This anthropological article will examine Muslim women’s narratives of motherhood and mothering in contemporary Britain. In my research, Muslim women in Britain chose motherhood, firstly, as one of the many fronts on which to challenge patriarchy that is evident in some Muslim texts and to thus ‘reclaim their faith’ as articulated in foundational Islamic texts. Secondly, in their mothering experiences, Muslim women found a space of commonality that they shared with other women – motherhood was something these Muslim women believed they shared with their ‘sisters’ who were from backgrounds different to their own. Within their diverse and multifaceted struggles, Muslim women thus identified a space which they share with other women.
Abstract
This article examines existing literature and data from qualitative fieldwork with Muslim women in Britain to analyse their narratives of human rights and freedom, as they live within plural European contexts. In scared, securitised and polarised Europe, Muslim women have become visible markers of otherness. Each Muslim woman becomes a fulcrum upon which Western values and morality are measured against the “other”, its values, its beliefs and its choices. In exploring the implications of societal othering on Muslim women’s experiences of their human rights, this article concludes that in social contexts that are polemical, becoming the other dehumanises Muslim women who thus become ineligible for “human” rights. In such contexts, a human rights-based approach alone is insufficient to achieve “dignity and fairness” in society. In addition to human rights, societies need robust and rigorous dialogue so that societal differences become part of a new mediated plural reality.
Abstract
In the struggle for equality and rights for women, feminist scholarship developed methodological frameworks that can be used to challenge the marginality of any ‘othered’ group in society, who may be marginalised on account of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, or age. Whereas early feminism was critiqued as being a White, Western, middle class movement, it evolved (and continues to evolve) into a philosophical paradigm that is inclusive of the diverse ways of being a woman and of the diverse ways of being human. Feminist research approaches encapsulate a diversity of ways of doing research that challenge accepted intellectual norms, disciplinary silos and often encapsulate activism within research. These methods are usually reflective and participatory. In this special section we explore how a multiplicity of feminist approaches are applied within the sociology of religion. Through a diverse clutch of papers, we explore new frontiers that are being opened within the sociology of religion as a result of feminist methodological approaches and intellectual postionings.
This Editors’ Introduction to the special issue on ‘Motherhood, Religions and Spirituality’ serves to explain the rationale, research questions and context for this interdisciplinary collection. As such, it engages with Kawash’s call for more scholarly work on the intersections between mothering and religious beliefs, practices and experiences. It goes on to situate the contributions into feminist work and methodologies and to show how they focus on the voices and agency of mothers (and non-mothers), before introducing and contextualising the individual contributions. The Introduction concludes by discussing further studies that could build on the work of this collection.
Volumes in the series usually include a guest-edited special section that allows networks of researchers to report studies in areas that are of current interest or which are innovative and expanding the discipline into new areas.
Submitting Proposals: We welcome proposals from academics at all levels of their career, including early career researchers and final year PhD students. Please submit a title and abstract of no more than 300 words together with names and short biographies (150 words), institutional affiliation/s (if relevant), and contact details.
Manuscripts for both the main and special sections should be sent to the editors, Ralph Hood and Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor. For more information and submission guidelines please see the Call for Papers under Downloads on this webpage, or contact the editors.
The series has published an average of one volume per year over the last 5 years.
Abstract
This RSSSR Special Section focuses on children’s perspectives on religion, ethnicity and identity. It seeks to depart from adult-led understandings of religious identity that are more keenly determined by theology, texts, or beliefs. This co-edited special section includes artcles and research explorations that listen to children’s notions of faith, ethnicity, and identity. By bringing together academics working in diverse fields to understand how children perceive, understand and ‘do’ faith, this special section will initiate a paradigm shift in understandings of religious and indeed non-religious belief. It starts with an exploration of our own work, which focused on everyday religion rather theological understanding, recognising how children’s religious identities will be as much informed by negotiations of cultural and social practices as by official doctrine.