23/05/2024 15:15 - 17:30

HALL: FATESI - D'ACQUISTO

Proponent: Mirza J., Tadros M.

Chair: Mirza J., Tadros M., Tadros M.

Speaker: Howard J., Mader P., Mirza J., Tadros M.

Violations on the basis of freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) have been on the rise yet they remain largely overlooked in in the frameworks, policies and programmes of international development  such as the SDGs. This panel discusses the opportunities and limitations of framing FoRB in terms of addressing religious-based inequality in its intersections with other axes of exclusion such as gender, class, caste etc. with application to contexts in the Middle East, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.  We will present evidence for FoRB-blind development in areas such as education and health from our recently released book Poverty and Prejudice (2023).  We will put forward alternative methods of understanding religious inequality epistemically by drawing on examples from Using Participatory Methods to Explore Freedom of Religion and Belief (2023). We critically analyse the opportunities for a paradigmatic shift in development to incorporate the realities of individuals and groups experiencing religious discrimination and intersecting inequalities.