UU in cooperation with Max Planck Institute

14 and 15 December at Utrecht University

Organized by Peter van der Veer and Birgit Meyer

One of the main political issues today in the entire world, but certainly also in Europe, is that of the refugees. This issue has many aspects, including citizenship rights, national sovereignty, migration patterns, but here we want to focus on religion. Religious differences can be a cause of civil war and thus of flight to safer areas. Religion can also play a role in giving shelter to those who are on the move. Religion can be an essential part of both the problem and the response to it. We want to approach the religious aspect of the refugee problem by focusing on the materiality of religion. The refugees bring their religion to new places and have to create ritual spaces (churches, temples, mosques) to be able to give concrete shape to their traditions. They are received in refugee camps that are sites of religious competition for assistance, networking, and conversion; and after they have left these camps for more settled places the camps become lieux de memoire of the moment of transition into new lives. Another set of issues concerning the materiality of religion is that of death and the dead. Where to bury the dead and how to deal with the dead body in a new environment is one of the questions that concern refugees who settle in foreign lands. What happens when refugees introduce new material practices of religion among populations that are anxious about them? How are traditions materially transmitted over long distances and borders? What can be carried and what has to be left behind?

These and other questions we would like to address in an explorative workshop in December of this year at Utrecht University. The workshop is meant to raise problematics that can be addressed in a larger conference in 2018.