Religion & Secularism - emergent centre research stream

Over the lifetime of the centre new areas of research emerged that did not fall within the original research clusters. One area in particular is religion and secularism. CentreLGS developed a series of events within this area of research including:

• ‘Islam and it’s Feminisms’ - a half day workshop on 7th February 2007 at the University of Kent. The speakers were Qudsia Mirza from the University of East London on 'Interrogating Islamic Equality', and Samia Bano from Reading University on ‘Islamic Arbitration and the Privatisation of Family Law: Justice under the 'shadow' of law?’. Stewart Motha from the University of Kent acted as discussant.

• 'Interrogating Christianity' - a roundtable at the CentreLGS Gender Unbound conference, 7-10 July 2007, Keele University. This roundtable aimed to shift the direction of focus in this field – from women’s bodies, cultural sensitivities, and minority practices – to explore the power and character of Christianity in western political and legal practice.  Participants offered brief comments on such themes as political monotheism, the myth of secularism, love and the stranger, sex and HIV education, and the relationship between ‘Englishness’ and Protestantism after which the session opened up to a wider discussion. Participants to the roundtable were: Davina Cooper, University of Kent (Chair); Brenna Bhandar, University of Reading/Kent; Didi Herman, University of Kent; Reina Lewis, London College of Fashion; Daniel Monk, Birkbeck College; Stewart Motha, University of Kent

• 'It is difficult for a white judge to understand: Muslimness, Jewishness, and Christianity in UK child welfare cases' - presentation of an early work in progress paper by Didi Herman and Suhraiya Jivraj (University of Kent), followed by discussion, Thursday 15 May 2008, University of Westminster. The paper raised a number of themes which speak to ongoing Centre discussions about:
  - the relationship between Christianity and secularism
  - unmasking judicial neutrality and detachment
  - ethnocentric legal imaginations
  - how the courts understand minority faiths and ethnicities
  - agency and capacity in relation to religiosity and ethnic belonging

• 'The Lambeth Conference: A View from the Fringe' - Lecture by Bishop Gene Robinson (Diocese of New Hampshire, USA), 22 July 2008 at 5pm, University of Kent. Bishop Robinson is a prominent figure in efforts to include gays and lesbians within the Anglican Church. As the first openly gay bishop to be elected to office, he was not invited to participate in the Lambeth Conference. His talk reflects on issues of faith and sexuality in the Anglican Church.

Centre members working in this area of research include:

Sylvie Bacquet (Westminster)
Rohee Dasgupta (Keele)
Didi Herman (Kent)
Suhraiya Jivraj (Kent)
Stewart Motha (Kent)
Axel Staehler (Kent)
Pnina Werbner (Keele)