Religion and the Social Sciences Unit

The Religion and Social Sciences Unit (RSS) supports scholarship at the intersection of the social sciences and religious or theological studies. Topic areas include the study of religious and theological questions through specific social scientific methodologies, the integration of theological and social scientific approaches to the study of religious communities and practices, and comparative assessments of current issues by humanities-based and social scientific methods.

As always, we welcome all proposals on any topic broadly related to religion and the social sciences, and encourage creative formats such as flash sessions, roundtables, discussion-based, collaborative sessions, etc. 

If you think our unit is a good fit for your proposal, please be sure to select it as your first choice.

For the 2025 meeting in Boston, in addition to general topics in religion and the social sciences, we are interested in papers, papers session, and roundtable proposals that offer social scientific methodological and/or theoretical analyses in regard to:

• Religious Pluralism and Academic Freedom in our Current Political Climate: This is a fraught political moment. In light of this, we invite social scientific research and analysis on increasing limits on academic freedom and free speech in religious studies and theology classrooms, particularly as it relates to diversity, equity, and inclusion and the contingent faculty vulnerability. We also invite papers that explore the complex (and sometimes contested) role of religion in the university and how this shapes approaches to religious pluralism/religious minorities/religious diversity and the impact this has for work our work with students as well as our own scholarship

• Religion, Abolition, and Freedom of Movement: We invite papers that offer social scientific and empirically-based analyses of freedom of movement and geographical mobility, particularly as this relates to carcerality, migration, border crossing, and movement in occupied territory (e.g. Palestine and Ukraine), including but not limited to
  • Fugitivity and Black Religion 
  • Abolitionist and Liberation Theologies and the Social Sciences
  • Incarceration and Prison Abolition
  • Sanctuary
  • Border Justice
  • Border Abolition  
  • Role of religion in border justice/border abolition and sanctuary movements
  • Role of religion in restricting freedom of movement 
  • Impact of efforts to restrict freedom of movement on religious communities/people, especially religious minorities 

• Race, Religion, and the Global Politics of Israel and Palestine: Social scientific approaches to religion are increasingly recognizing and reckoning with the many ways that religious and racial identities converge to structure inequalities of power, privilege, experiences of freedom and unfreedom, national recognition, access to resources, and the perpetration and experience of violence. We invite proposals that explore these dynamics in the context of the global issue of Israel and Palestine. We envision a panel focused on interdisciplinary approaches and rooted in or in conversation with empirical and social scientific methods. Proposals should focus on the intersection of religion and race within Israeli or Palestinian society, in diaspora communities, in relations between Israelis and Palestinians, or in the context of global solidarities with Israel and/ or Palestine. We welcome contemporary or historical approaches that represent a wide range of theoretical perspectives, including comparative religious/political analysis, anti-colonialism, critical race theory, and many others.

   

• Religion and Development 2025-2030 (co-sponsored with International Development and Religion): The next five years will be a momentous and potentially tumultuous time for development agendas. In the run up to the end of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2030 and the incoming Trump administration in the US and its effects on international development funding and practices, shifts in our understandings of faith-based development, localization, the role of local faith actors, freedom of religion and belief, and strategic religious engagement are likely to evolve. We are interested in papers that speak to these evolutions:
• The effects on FBOs of shifts in development policy between US administrations
• The effects of religious freedom framings on development as a priority area of interest under Trump administrations 
• A focus on local faith actors and localization in humanitarian and development work
• How strategic religious engagement is being conceived and implemented in development practice
• Planning for 2030 and how to include faith actors in the post-2030 agenda
• Reflections on faith actor roles in advocacy for an implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals, and what should be learned for post-2030