Daily News
SSAP Symposium: 'Religion and Race/ialisation in Australia' - Friday 26 April
From: Vicki Fox
Valid from: Tuesday 12 March 2019 to Tuesday 9 April 2019
You are invited to attend the upcoming SSAP Symposium, 'Religion and Race/ialisation in Australia'. Please see below and the attached document for more information.
Details:
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Date: Friday 26 April
Time: 10.30am – 4.00 pm
Location: Room 03.9.01, Liverpool campus
Registration: Limited free registration - please RSVP to Rosemary Hancock at rosemary.hancock@nd.edu.au
Speakers
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Professor Fethi Mansouri (Deakin University), Professor Kevin Dunn (Western Sydney University), Associate Professor Farida Fozdar (University of Western Australia), Dr Jennifer Cheng (Western Sydney University)
Sponsored by
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The Australian Sociological Association (TASA), The Religion and Society Research Cluster (RSRC) and the School of Social Sciences and Psychology (SSAP) at Western Sydney University
Australia has recently seen the return of ‘race politics’ which is often connected to the religious faith of those being racialised. It is evident in discussions of Middle Eastern migrant communities, which are inevitably associated with Islam despite Islam being a global religion and the Middle East being religiously diverse. This discourse treats Islam as a monolithic whole and racialises Muslims and those who appear to be Muslim, ascribing particular characteristics such as violence and criminality, and oppressive attitudes towards women and sexual minorities. Such discourse fails to recognise the diversity within Islam, both in terms of its different legal schools and the cultural and geographical particularities that exist. Although much of the current work on religion and race both in Australia and internationally focuses on Islam, race and religious identity intersect across a range of other religions in Australia to produce various discourses of ‘othering’ both inside and outside religious communities. The relationship of Christianity to whiteness and Australian identity is also pertinent to this discourse: particularly in light of current political discourse on migration policy.
The study of religion and race/racialisation is a fast-developing field. Scholarship from the United States dominates the existing literature, with a secondary substantial contribution coming from the UK and Europe.
We believe that this event will be an excellent opportunity to:
* Bring together sociologists working in this field in Australia to reflect on the relevance of trends in the current international debate to the Australian context
* Share their work with other sociologists working in cognate areas
* Build an Australian network of sociologists with a shared interest in religion and race.
Attached document: RSRC April Racism and Religion Flyer 2 (003).pdf [126566 bytes] application/pdf