Global Encounters are today determined by multidimensional power and domination relations. Colonial and neo-imperial patterns remain effective even after the formal end of the colonial era and combine to form structures of asymmetrical distribution of resources, life chances and opportunities for shaping life. The study of these complex entanglements requires a deeper transdisciplinary reflection in which the analysis of global dynamics is combined with the critical examination of context-specific constellations. The challenge ahead is: Decolonizing Global Encounters.
Forum 1 "Decolonising Religion" questions the role of religion in postcolonial constellations and the (de)colonising potential of religious discourses and practices. Forum 2 "Decolonizing Politics" examines the conditions and possibilities of decolonial politics and legal understandings, human rights demands and the complexity and ambivalence of emancipation processes. Forum 3 "Decolonising Culture" asks about the symbolic structures of religion, politics and economy as well as the mechanisms and preconditions of the production of "sense", "meaning" and "identity" in postcolonial contexts.