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CALL FOR PAPERS:
Sexuality, AIDS and religion: transnational dynamics in Africa
School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, 28-30 September 2011
Convened by Nadine Beckmann (Oxford), Catrine Christiansen (Copenhagen), Alessandro Gusman (Riga) and hosted by the Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group (FRSG) and the International Research Network on Religion and AIDS in Africa.
Confirmed speakers include: Brooke Grundfest Schoepf (Harvard), Suzette Heald (LSE), Robert Thornton (University of the Witwatersrand), Rijk van Dijk (University of Leiden), Hansjörg Dilger (Free University of Berlin), Reverend Ijeoma Ajibade (Mayor’s Office, Greater London Authority)
Conference theme:
During the last twenty-five years, AIDS has profoundly impacted the African continent, not only at the epidemiological level, but also in the social, political and economic realm. Not least, it has changed the way people look at sexuality. In this process, HIV prevention campaigns located sex at the centre of the AIDS pandemic, and early risk group categorisations, combined with the voices of religious leaders and local networks of rumour and gossip, lent the pandemic strong moral connotations at global as well as at local levels. Hence, popular understandings of the disease and risk of infection frequently refer to an interpretative grid that draws on a religious moral framework, and in many parts of Africa (and the world at large) AIDS is represented as “God’s punishment” for social corruption and moral decay. This is particularly true in the increasingly popular Pentecostal churches, but a similar approach can also be found among mainstream Christians and in various Muslim discourses.
Religious institutions, such as churches and mosques, and faith-based development organisations, such as World Vision, have been active in promoting sexual education and HIV prevention programs and are at the forefront of providing care for the sick. However, these organisations have been criticised for increasing the stigmatisation of people living with the disease and for promoting ineffective ways of prevention, for example through over-emphasising abstinence and faithfulness while condemning condom use.
While scholars have pointed to the important roles religion plays in the moralisation of sexuality throughout the African continent, the roles of transnational relations in shaping local discourses on HIV/AIDS seem less clear. Most religious institutions and faith-based organisations work together with partners in as well as outside the continent, but although these relations are known to be crucial for the flows of ideas and resources in relation to HIV/AIDS, there is very limited knowledge on the transnational dynamics of views on sexuality in relation to HIV/AIDS and religion in Africa.
Against this background, the International Network on Religion and AIDS in Africa and the Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group propose a conference to examine the ways in which transnational relations influence the interrelations between religion, sexuality and AIDS in Africa. We invite both scholars and practitioners to contribute to these debates.
Please email abstracts (max. 500 words) to Catrine Christiansen: [log in to unmask], Nadine Beckmann: [log in to unmask], or Alessandro Gusman: [log in to unmask] by 1st July.
Please find attached more details of potential sub-themes.
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