BOOK LAUNCH DISCUSSION: THE NEW GOVERNANCE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY

Organised by Islamic Courses with the Al Manaar | The Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre

BOOK LAUNCH DISCUSSION: THE NEW GOVERNANCE OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY -'MULTICULTURALISED SECULARISM'

with co-author *Professor Tariq Modood [Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship University of Bristol]

Host and chaired by *Dr Fauzia Ahmad [Goldsmiths College, University of London]

Date and time: Friday 27th September 2024, 6pm - 8pm [Prompt start]

Venue: Al Manaar | The Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, 244 Acklam Rd, London W10 5YG

Religious diversity is a key feature of countries across the world today, but it also presents governments with very real challenges. Controversies around religious free speech, symbols, social values and morals, and the role of faith leaders as critical voices, are just a few of the issues that have given rise to fierce social, political and scholarly debate. So how do states include and accommodate religious diversity and should this change? What are the key difficulties facing states when it comes to governing religious diversity?

Understanding this complex phenomenon means thinking through secularism, liberalism, multiculturalism and nationalism in theory and practice. In this new book, Tariq Modood and Thomas Sealy draw on original research to present new ways of analysing the governance of religious diversity in different regions of the world. Identifying the key challenges at stake, they also argue for a new statement of multiculturalism in relation to the governance of religious diversity, that of ‘multiculturalised secularism’, which represents a constructive and productive response to the reality of religiously plural societies.

About the speakers

*Professor Tariq Modood [Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies, Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship University of Bristol] - Professor Tariq over the last 35 years has worked on: Theory and politics of racism, racial equality, multiculturalism and secularism, with especial reference to British Asian Muslims; ethnic identities, national identities and the 'second generation'; ethnic disadvantage and progress in employment and education; comparisons within and between Western Europe and North America; the politics of being Muslim in the West. He is most focused on are the political theory and sociology of multiculturalism, interculturalism and secularism; and on Islamophobia. He was the Bristol Director of the Leverhulme Programme on Migration and Citizenship, with UCL, which consisted of 8 projects running between 2003-09. With Anna Triandafyllidou led EMILIE: A European Approach to Multicultural Citizenship (with 8 EU partners), an EU 6th Framework project (2006-09) and followed this with a 15 countries project, Accept Pluralism: Tolerance, Pluralism and Social Cohesion (2010-2013). He worked on a project with Dr Therese O’Toole, Muslim Participation in Contemporary Governance, funded by the AHRC (2010-13). During 2010-11 he had a Fellowship from the AHRC to work on a book on Secularism and the Accommodation of Muslims in Western Europe, which he developed further on during his Robert Schuman Fellowship at the European University Institute, 2013-2015. He has held over 40 grants and consultancies, have over 35 (co-)authored and (co-)edited books and reports and over 350 articles and chapters. He was awarded a MBE for services to social sciences and ethnic relations in 2001, made a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK) in 2004 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2017. In 2022 he was ranked in the top 20 UK cited scholars in Politics, Law, Sociology and Social Policy combined. A regular contributor to media and policy debates being frequently cited by policy-makers and practioners and on several occasions has influenced policy. He has been an Adviser to the Muslim Council of Britain and have served on the DfES Race, Education and Employment Forum; the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain (1997-2000); the IPPR Commission on National Security (2007-09); the National Equality Panel (2007-10); and the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life (2013-16). His impact case study, ‘Influencing law, policy and public discourse on the accommodation of Muslims in Britain’ was one of three which collectively were ranked as 3rd in the UK by the Sociology 2014 REF. His work is part of syllabi for AS and A Level Sociology (OCR and possibly other Boards) and for A Level Politics. Recent books include Essays on Secularism and Multiculturalism (2019), Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea (2nd ed; 2013); and as Special Issues co-editor, with T. Sealy, Beyond Euro-American centric Forms of Racism and Anti-racism (Political Quarterly, 2022) and Global comparative analysis of the governance of religious diversity (Religion, State and Society, 2022). For more information visit https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/persons/tariq-modood or www.tariqmodood.com

*Host chair: Dr Fauzia Ahmad [Goldsmiths College, University of London] completed both her undergraduate and MSc in Social Anthropology also at UCL, and eventually gaining her PhD in Sociology from the University of Bristol. She previously worked for several years at Brunel University in the Dept of Social Work as a Research Associate and later Lecturer, at the University of Bristol as a Research Fellow, as the Senior Research Officer for the Commission for Racial Equality, and a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Cultures (ISMC). She then taught qualitative research methods across Master’s programmes in the Department of Political Science at University College London and since then has been teaching the MSc in Social Research and contributes towards undergraduate research methods teaching, at Goldsmiths College, London. She is a member of the Editorial Board on the journal Gender and Education, and an Affiliate Member at the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, in the Department of Sociology, University of Bristol. She is a qualitative feminist researcher with research interests and publications focusing on gendered ethnic and faith and identities with a particular specialism on Muslim families in Britain, and second and third generation British Muslim women’s identities, representations and experiences of higher education, employment, social welfare, Muslim feminisms and Islamophobia. She is currently engaged in research with British Muslim men and women on their marital partner-searching strategies and relationships, and experiences of divorce and legal and counselling services. For more information visit https://www.gold.ac.uk/sociology/staff/ahmad-fauzia/

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Al Manaar | The Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, 244 Acklam Road, London, United Kingdom