CALL FOR PAPERS: MUSLIM PARTICIPATION IN CONTEMPORARY GOVERNANCE

Academic Workshop followed by Report Launch Event

Venue: Bishopsgate Institute, East London, UK

Date: 31 January 2013

SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

Professor Tariq Modood (Bristol University)

Humera Khan (An-Nisa Society)

Dilwar Hussain (Islamic Society of Britain)

This Workshop will bring together academic contributors from Britain and across Europe to discuss Muslim participation in forms of contemporary governance. Over the past decade, Muslims in many European states have emerged as participants in governance at different levels and across a range of policy domains. Important changes in this regard include the increased presence of Muslims in: structures of political representation; participatory initiatives concerned with social cohesion, faith-based social welfare programmes or countering violent extremism; a range of local democratic and consultative forums and bodies; lobbying and advocacy for equalities legislation both at the state-level and EU-level; and increasingly sophisticated political coalitions for the acknowledgement and diminution of Islamophobia.

The workshop will feature a day of research on and discussion of developments in the study of Muslim participation in forms of contemporary governance. This will be followed by a public Report Launch Event in the evening, featuring a research presentation from the AHRC/ESRC project Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance: a two and a half year study of developments in Muslim participation in governance at national level and in three local case-study areas of Birmingham, Leicester and Tower Hamlets. At this Report Launch Event policy makers and Muslim civil society actors will respond to the project’s Report, and debate the key issues relating to the participation of Muslims in governance and public life in Britain.

We are particularly pleased to invite research from other European countries as well as from the British context, that will complement the work being done in Britain by our AHRC/ESRC project on Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance in the UK. Authors of the papers selected for the day workshop will have an opportunity to be invited as contributors to an edited volume comparing developments in Muslim participation in governance in Britain and Europe.

Abstracts for papers on the following topics (and other cognate topics) are invited:

  • Muslim representation through electoral politics, representative bodies, and other modes
  • Community-based and partnership approaches to policing and counter-terrorism
  • Muslim agency, governmentality, and the everyday state
  • The development of Muslim civil society organisations
  • Coordinated campaigns and lobbying on Islamophobia
  • Muslim mobilisations in relation to multiculturalism, equalities, diversity, and cohesion
  • The participation of Muslims and Muslim organisations in the ‘faith sector,’ in inter faith activities, and in faith-based service delivery
  • Muslim mobilisations that link domestic, EU-level, and/or international governance
  • Comparisons of Muslim participation in governance across states

Please submit abstracts of up to 300 words to Dr Therese O’Toole, Professor Tariq Modood, and Dr Daniel Nilsson DeHanas, (mpcg.uk@gmail.com). Abstracts must be submitted by Noon on 15 December 2012 to be considered for inclusion.

For details on the Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance (MPCG) project, please visit: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/ethnicity/projects/muslimparticipation/

MPCG is a project of the Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship, in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol. The project is led by Dr Therese O’Toole, and funded by the Religion & Society Programme of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council in the UK.

=========================================== Dr Daniel Nilsson DeHanas Centre for Ethnicity and Citizenship School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies University of Bristol 11 Priory Road Bristol BS8 1TU Phone: +44 (0)790 807 5719

Research Centre: http://bris.ac.uk/ethnicity

Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance Project: http://bris.ac.uk/ethnicity/projects/muslimparticipation