Special Themed Issue of the Journal for Religion, Society and Politics
Edited by Udo Kelle, Andreas Schmitz & André Armbruster
This special issue of the Journal for Religion, Society and Politics will adopt a decidedly sociological perspective as a starting point for understanding religious abuse: because abusive practices occur in huge numbers, in many regions of the world, in almost all forms of institutionalized religion, and show similar dimensions and patterns, abusive practices can be understood as recurring, systematic, if not systemic structural moments of institutional and organized religion. Abuse is not a random accident of religion, but religious structures, church systems and culture(s) are themselves conditions and/or forces that enable abuse and (re-)produce abuse practices. This in mind, we call for proposals for contributions that, drawing on different theoretical and/or empirical studies, address different practices of abuse in their praxeological, cultural, and institutional, contexts and systematically relate such accounts to the logic of religion. Although research on the abuse complex has yielded some insights, the treatment of the phenomenon under a social science perspective is still in its infancy. We ask for contributions from a broad pluralism of disciplinary viewpoints so that the phenomenon of abuse can be addressed with various aspects and a broad range of questions.
Click HERE to view the full Call for Papers.
We request abstracts of about one page in length by November 30, 2023 to the following addresses: kelle@hsu-hh.de, andreas.schmitz@ovgu.de, and andre.armbruster@uni-due.de. After reviewing the abstracts, we invite the submission of full manuscripts of 60,000 to 80,000 characters by June 30, 2024. Submissions will go through a double-blind peer review process; all outcomes of the review are possible: from minor to major revisions to rejection of the manuscript. A call for submission of a full paper does not constitute a promise of publication. We look forward to receiving your contributions!