Marwa Abdulla - the 2026 Implicit Religion US Keynote

Marwa Abdulla will deliver the 2026 Implicit Religion US Keynote on 28^th May, the lecture will be open to the public.

The Implicit Religion - US 2026
Challenging Narratives

Call for Papers Deadline: 3 April 2026
Decisions Communicated: 10 April 2026

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Demographic and cultural changes have meant that the New World histories which turned the counter-memory of racial slavery into an interpretative device that could be any example of injustice and exploitation have lost much of their power and appeal.” (Gilroy, 2002:12)

Narratives surround us, sustain us, and shape us. Narratives can be powerful, inspiring, uplifting and the catalyst for needed change. Of course, narratives can also be manipulative, damaging, false, and prevent change. Narratives can challenge us, and be themselves challenged, in a multitude of ways. However, as Gilroy notes above, the power and capacity of narratives is always contingent upon appeal to readership or good faith engagement, which is never a guarantee or a constant. The current mainstreaming of racism, transphobia, and misogyny, alongside a growing emboldened visibility of the far right creates narratives that rewrite history to remove accountability, accuracy or even cultures and communities. Narratives are fragile but by focusing on them as scholars of religion we can better understand our field, those we study, and the world we seek to understand, explain, and impact. This is particularly true of narratives that relate to or force a confrontation with complacency on genocide, abuse of power, migration, and national security.
‍
The study of religion has its own narratives that it must confront, reckon with, develop, sustain, or imagine. For example, Marwa Abdalla’s work on Black Muslim experiences in the US. Drawing on the work of Suad Abdul Khabeer, Abdalla notes that “[h]istorically, the assumption that Muslims were Arab or South Asian compounded the challenges facing many Black Muslims by rendering “Blackness” as “lacking in religious authority and authenticity” in Muslim American communities”, leading to “intersectional invisibility” or “the seeming erasure and marginalization resulting when dominant discourses [or narratives] privilege prototypical group members—those who typically come to mind when group identity is invoked—at the expense of non-prototypical ones.” (2023: 10; Abdul Khabeer, 2016; Purdie-Vaughans & Eibach, 2008)
‍
Implicit Religion was initially developed in the late 1960s as an approach, or set of analytical tools, to challenge the then dominant narrative of secularisation (Bailey, 1997). Implicit Religion is an approach that explores the sacred aspects of people's passions, commitments, and identities that are often located in the narratives they construct about themselves, and others. By focusing on the complexities of religiousness and things deemed special in communities, this conference will explore the role, impact and potential purposes of challenging narratives (Taves, 2009).

Presenters are invited to submit abstracts for consideration on the theme of “Challenging Narratives”.   These might include but are not limited to:

• Narratives/contested narratives and their outcomes/impacts in relation to environmental justice; intersectional and/or Indigenous environmentalism; climate denial; ecology and religious nationalism; and faith based eco-activism.
• Narratives/contested narratives on universal rights frameworks, including but not limited to reproductive rights, gender, sexuality, migration, and war crimes and the approaches of religious and non-religious communities, and activist groups or movements
• Narratives/contested narratives and their role(s) in the social, cultural, and religious construction of disability/race/sexuality/gender or other protected characteristics
• Narratives/contested narratives of religious nationalism and their impact on communities/policies/practices
• The role/use/misuse of narrative frameworks and/or approaches on the relationship(s) between politics and religion; and politics and communities that coalesce around something deemed sacred/special
• Narratives, rituals and aesthetics framed by religious, syncretic, or experiences deemed special in communities, groups, subcultures, traditions, or institutions defined regionally, or globally.
• Feminist and/or Queer perspectives on challenging narratives within/for/about/ through religious communities, groups, subcultures, institutions or those shaped by an experience deemed religious or special
• Methodology and/or analytical approaches to the study of the role of narratives within and/or by societies and communities where organised religion has declined or changed significantly

Please note successful proposals will incorporate an Implicit Religion perspective in the design of the underlying study, or within the paper, address in part or in concert: Commitment, Integrating Foci, and Intensive Concerns with Extensive Effects (Bailey, 1997).
‍

References

Abdul Khabeer S. (2016). Muslim cool: Race, religion and hip hop in the United States. New York University.

Bailey, Edward I. (1997) Implicit Religion in Contemporary Society. Leuven: Peeters.

Gilroy, Paul. (2002) There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack. Routledge

Marwa, Abdalla. (2023) “My Islam be Black”: resisting erasure, silence, and marginality at the intersection of race and religion, Communication, Culture and Critique, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp 9–16

Purdie-Vaughns V., Eibach R. P. (2008). Intersectional invisibility: The distinctive advantages and disadvantages of multiple subordinate-group identities. Sex Roles, 59(5-6), 377–391.

Taves, Ann (2009) Religious Experience Reconsidered: A Building-Block Approach to the Study of Religion and Other Special Things. Princeton University Press
‍