CO-SPONSORSHIP: Religion and Human Rights Unit and Sociology of Religion Unit

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.