Religion and Human Rights Unit
The Religion and Human Rights program unit seeks papers that explore the topics of religion and human rights from a breadth of scholarly perspectives. This may include analyses of the ways particular religious actors and traditions articulate the compatibility or incompatibility of religion and human rights; how human rights serve to complicate or enhance our understanding of categories such as "religion" and "secularity"; and how the intersection of religion and human rights implicates issues of race, gender, law, politics, ecology etc.
Proposals on any topic related to religion and human rights are welcome. In keeping with this year's presidential theme of Future/s, we are particularly interested in proposals on the following topics:
The future is informed by the past. Our unit seeks proposals for papers that reflect upon the 75th anniversary of the historic petition “We Charge Genocide” delivered to the United Nations Committee on Human Rights from the Civil Rights Congress. The report details systemic patterns of racial murders, state-sanctioned executions of unarmed Black men and women killed by police and lynch mobs.
We invite papers that engage the significance of “We Charge Genocide” for the future of religion and human rights. Topics may include but are not limited to:
- How the “We Charge Genocide” petition has been used as a model for social movements to craft religious and moral arguments to engage the U.N. and other international human rights mechanism in the pursuit of justice;
- The legacy of the petition in informing both contemporary and future charges of genocide, rooted in the imposition of social conditions that lead to premature death due to social conditions such as poverty (economic violence), infant mortality, disease, inadequate medical care and education as well as violence;
- The religious significance of the petition in responding to the enduring entanglements of anti-Blackness, racism, sexism, police violence and fascism, and how the charges and concepts in “We Charge Genocide” might inform future scholarship and action related to religion, human rights, and social justice.
For a possible co-sponsored session with Sociology of Religion, we invite papers on the future of the relationship between religion and human rights as examined through sociological methods or theories. Proposals may address the possibilities and pitfalls of studying and promoting human rights; ways that religious or secular communities are approaching human rights at a time of global upheaval; how religious groups are reshaping human rights in utopian or dystopian directions; how religious groups are rethinking the “human” in human rights, and more. Proposals may also consider the role of grassroots movements versus national or global institutions as sites for human rights mobilization, especially questions of what it means for human rights protections to arise “from below,” through the work and struggle of marginalized or minoritized communities. In this co-sponsorship, we welcome proposals that lie at the intersection of conceptual analysis of "religion and human rights" and forms of qualitative, quantitative, or social theoretical analysis that build knowledge about how religious or secular groups are navigating a changing world of religious and human rights claims and practices.
For a possible co-sponsored session with the Native Traditions in the Americas program unit, we seek papers that explore the thought, practices, and lifeways of Indigenous communities, particularly in the Americas, and the language and concepts of human rights. The future of human rights is intertwined with the work of communities who challenge colonial ideologies and practices and who draw on deep-rooted, living concepts and lifeways to make claims for community well-being while critiquing Western-centric notions of rights.
We are especially interested in how Indigenous thinkers and communities in the Americas use the language of human rights to advocate for respect for religious practices, honor for the land, and more, while recognizing that discourses of “human rights” often have complicated historical relationships with colonial ideas and institutions. We invite proposals that explore how members and leaders of Indigenous communities in the Americas navigate these nuances, reshaping thinking about “rights” and the well-being of human communities embedded in kinship ties with other species and the world around us.
The Religion and Human Rights Unit seeks to enhance both scholarly and public conversation around the intersection of religion and human rights ideas and practices. We solicit papers in any area of religion and human rights studies. Topics we engage include: how particular religious actors and traditions articulate the compatibility or incompatibility of religion and human rights; how human rights serve to complicate or enhance our understanding of categories such as “religion” and “secularity”; how religious and human rights approaches address particular cases and social issues; how grassroots and social movement organizations approach ideas and practice of human rights; and how the intersection of religion and human rights implicates issues of race, gender, law, politics, etc. We recognize that both human rights and religious ideologies can inspire thought and action that benefits the vulnerable and promotes the common good; at the same time, both can serve the interests of power, oppression, and colonialist hegemony. Thus it is vitally important to evaluate and critique both. Participants in the unit approach these topics, and others, from diverse areas of study, methodologies, and perspectives. The unit also prioritizes the public understanding of religion in conversation with human rights ideas. Human rights is a much-discussed topic in the media and political circles, yet much public dialogue assumes that religion and human rights are either straightforwardly congruent with each other, or straightforwardly opposed to each other. The unit welcomes papers that critique, nuance, and enhance public understanding of the intersection of religion and human rights.
The Religion and Human Rights unit strives for diversity and critical conversation in its unit makeup and public output. Our selection process for unit steering committee and chairs is open to all who express interest, and we intentionally recruit steering committee members from diverse demographic groups and intellectual and professional experiences. We strive to formulate our calls for papers to encourage submissions and presentations from diverse members of the AAR and to bring to light multiple diverse, critical perspectives on topics in religion and human rights.
The co-chairs compose the Call for Proposals for R&HR sessions for the AAR Annual Meeting. Steering committee members review, shape, and accept proposals for those sessions; review and report on sessions; and often serve as presiders or respondents for particular panels. Co-chairs communicate with the R&HR constituency.
The Steering Committee is made up of nine members, two of whom are elected by the members to serve as co-chairs. A Steering Committee term is three years, renewable for a second three years if everyone is amenable. The terms are staggered, so that there are continuity and change on the committee. During a total of six possible years, a member might serve a co-chair term, which is three years. A member elected to serve as co-chair has at least one full year’s experience on the Steering Committee. The co-chair elections are staggered as well, so that each new co-chair serves with an experienced co-chair.