Strengthening Afghan civil society has been seen as central to the post-2001 peacebuilding process by national and international actors engaged in Afghanistan. But limited attention has been given to who are considered civil society actors and what role religious actors could play. Kaja Borchgrevink revisits her work on Afghan civil society 10 years on arguing that more consideration needs […]
The emergence of anti-homosexuality politics in Africa is often explained with reference to religion. Although religion is a major factor in fuelling homophobia in Africa, the Bible and the Christian faith are not only sites of struggle but have also been appropriated by African LGBT activists in support of their cause. Adriaan van Klinken says we need to move beyond a […]
Are Islam and human rights compatible? The answer to this depends on what kind of Islam and what kind of human rights we’re talking about as well as when, where and with whom. Marie Juul Petersen explores how Islam entails a multitude of different voices, interpretations and positions on human rights, promoted by different actors in different historical, social, […]
In the last two decades there has been a pressing need to make sense of religion in international politics. Here Anne Stensvold finds that the struggle over values at the UN is not a fight over ultimate truth but about how to accommodate religion in a globalized world. Rather than focusing on ‘good’ or ‘bad’ religion we need to look at […]
Note: This article was originally published on the earlier LSE Religion and the Public Sphere blog.
What factors affect religious freedom? As Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom and Gizem Arikan write, there is evidence that restrictions on religious freedom have increased globally in recent decades. Using data from a recent study, they highlight the role that processes of globalisation have had on this […]
Note: This article was originally published on the earlier LSE Religion and the Public Sphere blog.
Tania Saeed’s book looks at the experiences of young Muslim women across England, highlighting the anxieties of young Muslims who constantly feel targeted because of their religious beliefs. It finds that Muslim students are actively challenging Islamophobia on campuses through dialogue, taking charge of the […]
The interim report of the Commission on Religious Education was published last month seeking to outline a vision for the subject in current education policy in England. Whilst debates around the place of religions in education seek to balance the place of an established religion with increasing religious diversity, they often ignore the rise in recent decades of a […]
The last half-century has seen a shift, not from religion to no religion but from one type of religion to another. François Gauthier argues that scholars of religion have often ignored the rise of economics as a dominant and structuring social force beginning in the 1980s and, as such, how consumerism and neoliberalism have shaped religion. He finds that […]
In a recent study, Rina Arya investigated how attitudes to caste varied between generations in the Hindu Punjabi community living in the Greater Manchester area. Here she offers a summary of the research and writes that it points to the continuing – albeit evolving – significance of caste in the diaspora.
Caste and class are significant issues within Hindu society, both in […]
John Lever’s upcoming book explores the global kosher and halal food industry and finds that Jewish-Muslim relations can be more harmonious than is often assumed.
In line with conflict in the Middle East, Jewish-Muslim relations are often represented in the media and public discourse in confrontational terms. In a recent blog piece, Yulia Egorova suggests similarly that Jewish-Muslim relations reflect and […]
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