Home (en)

Centre for Research on Culture and Gender

The Centre for Research on Culture and Gender at the Department of Languages and Cultures, Ghent University, supports research and scholarly exchange on questions of identity, difference and diversity in a globalized world from the perspective of critical inquiry, qualitative and interdisciplinary research methodologies.

The Centre brings together scholars and students from the arts, humanities and social sciences, in collaboration with other disciplines, interested in the study of culture in intersection with gender and/or other identity markers such as sexuality, ethnicity, class, nation and religion.

 

background

Agenda

  • Mon
    19
    Jun
    2023

    Other pathways of mesoamerican tradition: An autoethnography and affective ethnography on the spirituality of a migrant farmers family from Ahauacatlán de Guadalupe

    12-13:30Hybrid
    Lunch seminar

    During this lunch seminar Manuel will present some of his advances on research about the relation of his family with spiritual practices from mesoamerican tradition as a point of inquiry from autoethnography and affective ethnography. Since the articulation of the methodology required a necessary ethical reflection, his starting point on the relationship with family members and himself for the research has been one of its main axes along the project. At the same time, the inquiry into his family history opened the way to understand his own situated relations to the colonization process that many people have gone through in his country. From this perspective, his actual focus is to understand the relation between coloniality, the effects of policies of mestizaje, the potentiality of spirituality, and the way in which his family keep certain vitality of the Mesoamerican tradition even when they as farmers, are not part of any indigenous group.

     

    Manuel Antonio Guerrero García is a PhD student on Anthropological Sciences at the Metropolitan Autonomous University- Iztapalapa UAM-I, in Mexico City. He has a training on social anthropology and history. Specialist on anthropology of culture, his principal interest is on symbolic anthropology, religion studies, gender, decoloniality, policies of citizenship and raciality.

     

    This lunch seminar will be hybrid. You can join on-campus at:  meeting room Panopticon, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent

    Or follow online via MSTeams. You can register here

    Show content
  • Wed
    21
    Jun
    2023

    Symposium: Islamic ethics & living in ethnic and cultural diversity

    9:30 amHet Pand, Ghent
    Conferences and symposia

    CALL FOR PAPERS

    In the last decades, anthropological scholarship on Islam has given considerable attention to ethics and Muslim self-fashioning. In the context of Muslims in Europe the ethical turn was most productive in relation to limitations of secular/liberal national regimes (e.g. Fadil, 2011; Jouili, 2015), various forms of governmentality by state and non-state actors (e.g. Ahmad & El-Yousfi, 2021), and in relation to gender and sexual practices (e.g. Amir-Moazami, Jacobsen, & Malik, 2011; Lechkar, 2022). Recently, proposals were made for an anthropology of Islam that takes faith, divinity and God more seriously, for instance, by critically interrogating anthropologists’ methodological atheism (Willerslev & Suhr, 2018). Or by suggesting to devote more attention to the ‘power of God’ by examining understandings of human-divine relations, and the ways theology shapes human interactions through God’s presence and mediation (Schielke, 2019). The question has been raised as to how we can discern and discuss the shapes of an ‘autonomous Islamic tradition’ in Europe, while moving beyond foundational concerns with Muslims’ sameness/Otherness (Fadil, 2019).

    The goal of this day is to reflect further on current approaches in the anthropology of Islam, particularly by foregrounding Islamic faith, spirituality and ethics, and the conditions of life in superdiverse contexts. How can anthropologists study everyday life but also the role of Islamic ethics in environments marked by multiple forms of cultural and religious difference? More generally, how can both disciplines - Islamic theology/ethics and anthropology – be brought into a productive dialogue and conversation? We welcome presentations that discuss empirical research or theoretical reflections. Presentations of findings, work in progress and think pieces are all welcome.

    Keynote: Mohammed Hashas (LUISS University of Rome)

    Roundtable: Samuli Schielke (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Martijn de Koning (Radboud University Nijmegen), Mieke Groeninck (KU Leuven; Odisee University College), Merve Reyhan Kayikci (KADOC- KU Leuven)

    Please send your abstracts (250 words) and short biography (100 words) to an.vanraemdonck@ugent.be & iman.lechkar@vub.be before May 7th, 2023. Feel free to address us with any questions. Decision notifications will be sent at latest by May 14th 2023.

    Convenors: An Van Raemdonck & Iman Lechkar

     

     

    PROGRAM

    PART 1 Anthropology’s encounters with Islamic ethics/theology (Eng.)

    9.30 Welcome and introduction

    9.45 – 11.15 Roundtable 1 with Samuli Schielke (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Martijn de Koning (Radboud University Nijmegen), Mieke Groeninck (KU Leuven; Odisee University College), Merve Reyhan Kayikci (KADOC- KU Leuven)

    11.15 - 11.30 Coffee

    11.30 – 12.45 Panel 1  Amin El Yousfi (Cambridge University), Hakan Çoruh (Charles Sturt University), Shajeem Muhammed Fazal Pallikkara Veettil (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research), Derya Iner (Charles Sturt University).

    12.45 – 14.00 Lunch break

    PART 2 The role of Islamic ethics in the lives of Muslims in Europe (Eng/NL)*

    14.00 – 15.00 Keynote Mohamed Hashas “On Islamic thick and thin ethics and the challenge of modern pluralism”

    15.00 – 16.00 Panel 2 Paper presentations: Noor Zehra Zaidi (UMBC), Erin Atwell (University of Chicago) en Dominik Müller(Freiburg University)

    16.00 – 16.15 Coffee

    16.15 – 18.00 Roundtable 2 (NL) with Muslim civil society organisations “The role of Islamic ethics in everyday life”

    With Cindy Raes (Al Minara), Kautar Oulad El Haj (Netwerk Islamexperten), Amal Miri (FMV/Antwerp University), Yasmina Akhandaf (Green Deen) en Hilmi Lazhar (Arteveldehogeschool).

    18.00 – 20.00 Reception

    *Live translation English/Dutch will be provided. 

    This event is free and all are welcome to attend!

    Please register here: https://www.eventbrite.nl/e/symposium-islamic-ethics-living-in-ethnic-and-cultural-diversity-tickets-623489492857

    For questions or more information, please contact An Van Raemdonck,  an.vanraemdonck@ugent.be

    Show content

More activities

 

Press and news

 

Read all