Politics of Religious Freedom in Southern Africa
Academic Workshop
University of Cape Town
February 5-6, 2014
Sponsored by:
A.W. Mellon Foundation
Henry R. Luce Foundation, Politics of Religious Freedom project
(http://iiss.berkeley.edu/politics-of-religious-freedom/)
The right to religious liberty is a powerful and enduring feature of contemporary ethical,
legal and political thought. Recent work in intellectual history and the comparative history of
ideas, however, has begun to question reigning narratives advancing the simultaneous neutrality
and universality of the right to religious freedom and to provide more complex assessments of
the multiple histories and genealogies of religious freedom.
Two critical trajectories in particular have emerged: one which reexamines early modern
European and post-Enlightenment histories and anthropologies of the right to religious liberty
and seeks to make visible both their provincial character and contingent relationship to rival
religious and political projects; another which analyzes the development of the concept of
religious liberty in non-Western histories during the colonial and post-colonial periods in order
to re-think the normative and prescriptive accounts of religious liberty often found in
international law and human rights debates.
In light of these critical engagements, this workshop aims to explore the kinds of politics
being carried out today in the name of religious freedom in Southern Africa, the forms of
normative contestation and hybridization that have occurred, and both the colonial and postcolonial origins and agendas of religious liberty.
Disagreements about religious freedom often unfold around certain themes which, while
specific to certain historical and political contexts, also cut across this specificity and reveal the
structural tensions that haunt debates around religious freedom. Some of the key themes around
which conflicts occur include: religious freedom conceived as an individual versus a collective
right; the proper “source(s)” or philosophical basis of religious freedom as a human right; the
place of and protections accorded to minorities in a democracy; the proper boundary between
religion and state; and what religion is imagined to be in struggles over religious liberty,
including the belief/practice dichotomy.
In the context of the contemporary politics of religious freedom in southern Africa, the
workshop will address aspects of these themes in six sessions over two days. In particular, the
sessions will address questions of (1) what constitutes “religion” and a proper religious
subjectivity; (2) the relationship between religious liberty and political secularism; (3) competing
ethical and philosophical understandings of religious freedom conceived as a “right”; (4) the law
and politics surrounding the recognition of Muslim marriages; (5) the relationship between
religion and culture as currently contested in issues of customary law and tribal courts; and (6)
jurisprudence on the right to religious freedom in both Southern African constitutional and
international law.
Participants will not be asked to submit or present formal papers but rather to submit a 34 page memo prior to the workshop responding to the themes of their session and to discuss their
contribution in a roundtable format. To see a recent public discussion series on the Social
Science Research Council blog The Immanent Frame in which scholars from different fields
were asked to consider the multiple histories and genealogies of religious freedom see:
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/the-politics-of-religious-freedom/.
Organizers
Dr. Louis Blond, Senior Lecturer, Jewish Thought and European Philosophy, UCT
Peter Danchin, Professor of Law, University of Maryland; A. W. Mellon Visiting Professor,
UCT
Invited Participants
Hon. Dr. Ali Ahmad, Member, 7th National Assembly, House of Representatives, Nigeria;
formerly Lecturer and Head, Department of Public and International Law, Bayero University,
Nigeria
Dr. Waheeda Amien, Senior Lecturer in Law, UCT
T. W. Bennett, Professor of Law, Department of Public Law, UCT
Laurence Bloom, Visiting Lecturer in Philosophy, UCT
David Chidester, Professor of Comparative Religion and Chair of Religious Studies, UCT
Danwood Chirwa, Professor of Law and Head of the Department of Public Law, UCT
Nathasha Erlank, Professor and Head of Historical Studies, University of Johannesburg
Nomboniso Gasa, Independent Researcher on Gender, Politics, Leadership and Cultural Issues
Chuma Himonga, Professor of Law, Department of Private Law, UCT
Dr. George Hull, Lecturer in Ethics and Philosophy, UCT
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Associate Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University
Mazibuko Jara, Research Associate, Traditional Courts Bill, Centre for Law & Society, UCT
Jonathan Klaaren, Professor of Law, University of the Witwatersrand
Dr. Annie Leatt, Lecturer in Buddhism and Critical Thought, Religious Studies, UCT
Rashida Manjoo, Associate Professor of Law, Department of Public Law, UCT
Dr. Sibusiso Masondo, Senior Lecturer, School of Religion, Philosophy & Classics, University of
KwaZulu-Natal
Fatima Osman, Lecturer in the Department of Private Law, UCT
Dr. Nyameko Barney Pityana, Revd. Canon Professor & Rector of College of the Transfiguration
Annette Seegers, Professor and Head of Faculty of Political Studies, UCT
Sa’diyya Shaikh, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Feminist Theory, UCT
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Professor of Religious Studies and Law, Indiana University
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