Fragile Meanings: Vulnerability in the Study of Religions and Spirituality
Historically, religious and spiritual institutions, groups, and practices have been used to protect vulnerable persons. However, at times, they have also exposed and exacerbated individual vulnerabilities. Today, the political, social, cultural, and environmental scenarios continue to demonstrate that religions play a key role in escalating or mitigating vulnerabilities. In light of these complex dynamics, the fifteenth edition of the International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society aims to problematize these notions through transdisciplinary theoretical and empirical research.
Research on vulnerability provides a hermeneutical lens for interpreting individual, communal, and institutional capacity to live in a globalized world where religions and spirituality frequently intertwine the resilience of groups, individuals, and minorities. The conference will offer a systematic analysis of religious and spiritual experiences, texts, doctrines, and practices that help understand how vulnerability and resilience represent two sides of the same coin. Reflection on these issues may offer solutions to larger contemporary social challenges.
We will explore how religions and spirituality can constitute a resource or a limit for the development of human relationships, intercultural dialogue, personal enhancement, and social justice. Religious and spiritual vulnerability will also be explored by looking at how new processes of legal recognition and protection can be put in place to prevent conditions that exploit or disadvantage persons or groups. Conversely, the extent to which religion and spirituality can positively enhance social, political, and legal conditions will also be explored.