Local practices of religion and gender in the post-secular world society
Workshop 16. ­- 18. June 2021
Funded within the framework of Platform 4 "Global Encounters" (UniversityTübingen)
Despite the worldwide establishment of norms of equality and an increasing de-institutionalisation of gender relations, notions of a traditional gender order in the context of (different) religions have proven to be surprisingly persistent. On the one hand, religion functions less and less as a cultural determinant of social gender relations as a result of secularisation and modernisation processes, and the lives and situations of women and men have in many respects become empirically aligned. On the other hand, in the (post-)secular world society, numerous conflicts are igniting around the topic of "gender and religion": In the international human rights discourse, for example, demands for women's rights or rights for sexual and gender minorities have regularly collided with religiously based traditions since the 1990s. Here, representatives of the Catholic Church together with evangelical right-wingers and fundamentalist-oriented Muslim states act against the so-called "gender ideology" and for heterosexual marriage and family as a "natural and fundamental group unit of society".
And also on a national or local level, gender difference is the source of considerable conflicts in various religious contexts: in the Catholic Church, for example, there is still a struggle over access for women to spiritual offices and leadership functions (Maria 2.0), in the member churches of the EKD there is a dispute over whether same-sex couples may be married or blessed, and there are still debates among traditionalist-oriented Muslims who assume that there is inequality between the sexes. Furthermore, the situation in Germany has changed again in recent years as a result of the increasing number of refugees from Muslim countries and has triggered debates about religious and cultural differences regarding sexual morality. Moreover, religious and ethnic boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred in public descriptions of self and others, leading to further politicisation and intensification of conflicts. Against the background of these debates, we are interested in the everyday social practices with which religious and gender affiliation are established, overlap or also neutralise each other. The two categories of persons, gender and religion, are not understood as predetermined or fixed categorical distinctions, but as culturally and historically contingent forms of social differentiation. In this way, we tie in with both practical-theological work on the everyday life-world practice of religion ("lived religion") and sociological research on human differentiations.
If one takes practice-theoretical considerations on human differentiations seriously, religious and gender affiliations take place simultaneously, can overlap, mutually reinforce or also neutralise each other, and it is ultimately an empirical question in which situations which form of affiliation is actualised. Interesting questions in this regard, which have hardly been addressed in social science research so far, concern the observability of religious practices as social belonging: What does doing religion mean and which forms of expressions of religious belonging are conceivable or can be observed here? Are members of different religions distinguished here (Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc.), different denominational affiliations (Protestant/Catholic) or perhaps rather religious believers from agnostics, atheists and the religiously indifferent? On the basis of which characteristics are religious attributions made and to what extent are e.g. ethnic affiliations relevant here? Which faith resources are actualised or negated in which way?  These questions will be discussed in an interdisciplinary workshop. The workshop will be jointly organised by Marion Müller (Sociology), Michael Schüssler (Practical Theology/Catholic Theology), Fahimah Ulfat (Religious Education/Islamic Theology), Ursula Offenberger (Sociology/Methodology Professorship) and Birgit Weyel (Practical Theology/Evangelical Theology).