Religion and Human Rights Unit

We seek papers that explore the topics of religion and human rights from a breadth of scholarly perspectives. We seek analyses of the way in which 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 Violence, Nonviolence, and the Margin, we are particularly interested in proposals on the following topics:

For a possible co-sponsorship with the Quaker Studies Program Unit and the Religion and Politics Program Unit, we invite papers that consider:

• The religious logics of nonviolent protest in the U.S. and beyond;
• Relationships between nonviolence and colonialism/dispossession: explorations of the ways in which nonviolent resistance might place actors at an advantage or a disadvantage in relation to regimes that have already dispossessed them of resources and/or rights;
• Dynamics of enforcement of nonviolent protest: explorations of topics like the use of the labels such as “violence” and “terrorism” to restrict nonviolent protest;
• The question of what counts as “violence,” and who decides when this label is used.

For a possible co-sponsorship with the Religion and Migration Program Unit, we invite proposals focused on the intersection of religion, migration, and violence/nonviolence. Topics may include:

• Borders as sites of violence against marginalized communities, and/or sites of nonviolent resistance;
• Violence and marginalization in cases of forced migration, including “survival migration”;
• Climate change and environmental destruction as a type of violence that forces people to move;
• Consideration of human rights of migrants and refugees, including human rights protection of communities who are marginalized and on the move, and whether the contemporary human rights regime remains meaningful in light of contemporary realities of migration

We invite proposals that explore redefinitions of communities, borders, religion, and rights, including examinations of how human rights are bound up with colonial borders, and/or how borders and boundaries set by colonial practices rely on violent enforcement toward marginalized communities.

Human rights and the use of force: we seek proposals addressing the intersection of human rights ideas and institutions, violence, and the use of force, whether by states or non-state actors. Topics might include, but are not limited to:

• Can the use of force be justified by human rights claims, especially claims of marginalized communities?
• What are the limits on the use of force under human rights norms, and can these limits ever truly be observed in practice?
• How do religious perspectives inform local, national, and global ideas and policy about the use of force?
• What can institutions like the United Nations, NGOs, and academic bodies do to protect human rights, especially rights of marginalized communities, in the face of civil war and violent repression worldwide? How do these institutions also reify violence and violate rights?
• Do the principles and concepts that are generally referred to under the umbrella of the just war tradition serve to limit violence and protect human rights? How do religious thinkers and communities engage with the idea of just war, and what does this idea mean in contemporary contexts?

We also invite proposals across a spectrum of human rights topics, including proposals that consider practical, political, religious, theological, and philosophical approaches to human rights ideas and practices. In keeping with the presidential theme, we especially welcome proposals on approaches to human rights from within marginalized social and religious traditions/communities.

In recognition of the 75th anniversary of the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we also invite proposals that consider the question of whether the idea of human rights still “work,” the status of grassroots human rights activism, and the question of whether human rights regimes can themselves be violent.