Framework

North Atlantic societies have faced known wide-ranging transformations regarding the ways religion inscribes itself in the public sphere as well as the place of religious references in the construction of identities. After the hegemonic discourses about the fate of religion, diagnostics have become increasingly paradoxical: between the «exit» of religion and its «return»; between «invisible» and «visible»; and between «erosion» and the «restoration» of the religious field; between the communitarian «hardening» and the «flow» of the religion of individuals. These new inscriptions of religion in the public sphere cannot be separated from changes that have occurred in the religious field and resulting, to a large extent, from the end of a historical relationship that identified a nation with a church and determined the overlap of national and religious identities, the affirmation of new possibilities of autonomy and individuation, and the effects of strong mobility, which is a structural constant since the second half of the twentieth century.

Portugal, mainly Catholic, albeit not affected by the wave of immigration occurred after World War II, became a receiving context after 1974, with newcomers from the former colonies, a phenomenon reinforced by the entry into the European Union in the eighties and immigration wave in the next decade. In addition to the freedom in the wake of the democratic regime, these factors were crucial towards the religious, ethnic and cultural diversity of Portuguese society. And today, as part of this new global trend, and for recognition in the public space, Catholicism, in its various sensitivities, as well as other Christian churches and other religions are seeking new ways of identification and new forms of communication/transmission.

The recent trajectories of Religious Studies clearly demonstrate the risks that are taken when the religious phenomenon is reduced to a single narrative. Religions and religion, as a scientific object, today require a multiscope perspective, allowing for the crossing of different scales and overcome the trends for their isolation and marginalization in the field of knowledges.  In this context, this initiative, driven by three Portuguese research units, has the modest ambition to contribute to the construction of the scientific community of Religious Studies in Portugal, promoting, in this colloquium, a gathering of views on some of the strongest paths of inquiry and research about religion in the context of multiple modernities .

Registrations
Registrations online until April 29.
Regular feel:  10 euros
 

Organising Committee
Alfredo Teixeira (CERC – Portuguese Catholic University)
Helena Vilaça (IS – University of Porto)
Teresa Toldy (CES - University of Coimbra | Fernando Pessoa University)

Organisation
Centre for Social Studies (CES), University of Coimbra
Institute of Sociology (IS), University of Porto
Centre for the Study of Religions and Cultures (CERC), Portuguese Catholic University


Contacts
ceslx@ces.uc.pt / 216012848

Sponsor
Embassy of Canadá

Support