Knowledge Newsletter
The Hivos Knowledge Programme is a platform for knowledge development on issues imperative to the global development sector. For more information see our website, or contact us at info@hivos.net.
Hivos and the Kosmopolis Insitute of the University for Humanistics have launched the Pluralism Working Paper series. The series provides a vehicle for early dissemination of knowledge and aims to reflect the diversity of theoretical and empirical work that is undertaken by academic researchers and development practitioners in association with the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme. In addition to Hivos and Kosmopolis, the following partners are part of the programme:
- Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS, Bangalore, India)
- Center for Religious and Cross Cultural Studies (CRCS, Yogyakarta, Indonesia)
- Cross-Cultural Foundation of Uganda (CCFU, Kampala, Uganda).
The working paper series is intended to stimulate discussion and critical comment on a broad range of issues addressed in the knowledge programme and contains publications in three categories:
A. academic research (-in-progress) papers
B. practice-based reflections
C. interviews and conversations
Please find a short introduction to the first four working papers below. We welcome your feedback conveyed to the working paper series editors or directly to the authors.
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Caroline Suransky, Hilde van ‘t Klooster and Ute Seela
Editors of the Pluralism Working Paper series
Rethinking the Secular
Religious difference has been posited as a crucial factor in international conflicts and increasingly challenges existing political settlements that define the relationship between the state and religion. Considering the ways in which politics and religion currently intersect one may argue that religion has become an increasingly important consideration in global politics. In this paper, Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na`im discusses his ideas on Islam and the secular state as presented during the Pluralism Knowledge Programme conference. The coordinators of the knowledge programme in Indonesia and India, Zainal Abidin Bagir and Sitharamam Kakarala, both respond to An-Na’im.
Read more...
The Hidden Dimension of the Secular.
Humanists should reconsider their often anti-religious stance, argue Henk Manschot and Caroline Suransky, researchers of the Promoting Pluralism Knowledge Programme at the University for Humanistics. There is a special relationship between modernity, secularism and humanism. However, the project of modernity has increasingly come under siege. Therefore, modern humanism too is challenged to rethink its own relationship with modernity and secularism.
Read more...
Instruments for Promoting Pluralism
Pro-pluralism activists in Indonesia tend to be too elitist and limit themselves to intellectual discussions, Farid Wajidi argues. In this working paper, he suggests that the pluralism movement needs to develop new strategies that could also reach common people, youth in particular. As an example, he describes the efforts of the NGO LKiS to create youth communities where high school students can personallyexperience pluralism instead of only talking about it.
Read more...
Uganda Riots Revisited.
Violent confrontations rocked Kampala in September 2009. This interview with knowledge programme coordinators Emily Drani and John De Coninck sheds light on the background of the unrest and its possible implications for the work of the pluralism knowledge programme in Uganda.
Read more...
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