Workshop: Religion and Armed Groups in Comparative Perspective

Utrecht University
SACRASEC/Contesting Governance/Protracted Conflict/VENI project Dangerous Liaisons

Date: Tuesday 6th of June.
Time: 14:00 – 17:00, with drinks afterwards.
Location: Drift 23, room 207

Since the beginning of this millennium, much research on religion and conflict has focused on religious terrorism and on religious fundamentalism. It has shown that religion plays diverging roles in different circumstances and can be connected to both organizations that employ violence and those that aim at peace and reconciliation. Whereas these insightful interventions demonstrate that we cannot assume that religious groups and ideas occupy a uniform role in conflicts, they also highlight the importance of unraveling in more detail how religion and violence interact in different domains, contexts, and levels. We are particularly interested in exploring the role of religion in the governance practices of armed groups. This includes role of religion in forms of “rebel governance” and the relations of armed organizations with the state, which may be antagonistic or result in strategic collaborations and hybrid in/formal governance structures. In this workshop we aim to bring together different studies and perspectives on armed groups and religion, to stimulate comparative thinking and further theorizing about the relations between religion, violence, and governance.

Speakers:
Salvador Forquilha (Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Economicos, IESE)
Ioana Cismas (University of York)
Murtala Ibrahim (Utrecht University) – will participate online

Discussant:
Corinna Jentzsch (Leiden University)

Moderation: Nikkie Wiegink/Katharine Fortin/Chris van der Borgh